Beth Lueders: The Assignment From Above

CBN.com Two days after America’s deadliest gunfire massacre at Virginia Tech on April 16, 2007, Beth Leuders read an email that several students at the Virginia Tech Campus Crusade for Christ (called CRU at VT) were killed in the shooting or were eyewitnesses to the chaos. 

Beth felt a special tug in her heart because she was involved in Campus Crusade for Christ during her own college days and then later as a full-time media staff person. She dropped to her knees in prayer sensing that God didn’t want this tragic story to end with the deaths of these students. Beth felt the Lord told her, “I want My story told.” 

As a journalist, Beth felt like there was a story to be told, a book to be written. “Then I realized that I was the one who was supposed to tell the story,” says Beth.

The next week, Beth flew out for an investigative trip. Despite her professional training to get the story at all costs, Beth chose to listen to the Voice from the One who nudged her to go to Blacksburg, Virginia. 

During her first trip, Beth retraced the killer’s steps, from West Ambler Johnson Hall, north across Drillfield and up the steps to Norris Hall. Several times, she visited the post office less than a block from the campus where the killer mailed his package to the media. As she drove away on April 27, Beth heard a song on the radio by Bebo Norman, called I Will Lift My Eyes, and scribbled the words in a notebook. 

“It’s the whole idea of lifting our eyes.  We’ve got to look up to God,” says Beth.

Later in May, Beth began interviewing students about the tragedy.  Through dozens of conversations with VT family members, survivors, students, professors and community members, Beth says she caught glimpses of God’s grace and goodness in the midst of unimaginable brokenness and pain. 

She had two-and-a-half weeks to write the book and Beth realized there needed to be a focal point.  She discussed the idea with VT CRU leaders. 

“They said if there needed to be a focal point to make it Lauren McCain,” says Beth.   

Incidentally, the first student who found her two friends in West AJ was CRU member Molly Donohue.  Another CRU member was Clay Violand. He was in the French class, the last classroom with the shooter, and the only one who walked out without any injuries. Only two survived in that classroom.  Everyone else was killed.

“The book is not just about Lauren,” says Beth. “It’s a story of God’s grace through the tragedy.”

Beth reminds us that God was not sleeping that day. “We live in a fallen world,” she says. ‘God is still good.” 

In memoriam, Beth shares about each student and professor who was killed in the back of the book.