Heads Will Turn

Updated: Aug 21

It was Tuesday, April 27, 1999. Only a week had passed since the mass shooting at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado. The Associated Press headline at the time simply read: "Bells Toll 15 Times in Littleton." While the headline accurately captured one of the main points of the article that followed, there was a providential story connected to this event that was developing behind the scenes. The reporter, while unaware of the full story, briefly touched on this mystery by describing it as "a hush" that fell over the Denver area. "Televisions and radios fell silent for one minute at 11:21 a.m."

What I'm about to show you is how this moment of silence to pray, reflect, and mourn was not only a spiritual event but is also a prophetic call to turn back to God! To fully explain why this is true, I've included the beginning of the article for you to read. Then, I'll give you the rest of the story detailing true events that occurred behind the headlines of one of the worst school shootings to shock and sadden our entire nation and the world. You'll see God at work in a way never seen before, turning what was meant for evil and using it for a greater good. It's all part of the legacy of how Columbine is much more than a national tragedy. You're about to discover that it really was and still is an important spiritual event!

"LITTLETON, Colo. (AP-Robert Weller) _ Exactly a week after the first shots rang out at Columbine High School, a hush fell over the Denver area Tuesday and church bells tolled 15 times _ one for each victim and the two gunmen. It was the first public expression of mourning that included the two killers, whose names went unmentioned at Sunday’s memorial for 70,000 people. Televisions and radios fell silent for one minute at 11:21 a.m. After the tolling, the bells rang out in joyous tones. 'We did a celebratory peal to remind everybody that there is life after death,' said Barry Bowman of St. John’s Episcopal Cathedral in Denver. Funerals for three more victims _ Matthew Kechter and Kyle Velasquez, both 16, and Corey DePooter, 17 _ were held. The Velasquez services drew 800 mourners, including Gov. Bill Owens."

Here now is the rest of the story.

It was ten months before the tragedy at Columbine when I was led to begin my first of four meetings with ministers of different Christian denominations other than my own Baptist faith. I shared with each of them my testimony of how God had given me a dream that saved me from suicide. I then explained how the Holy Spirit, during a later near-death experience (NDE), had told me to "Look and remember." The symbols you see in the picture are what He showed me.

Now picture this! While meeting with these ministers, I described the illuminated turning digital clock that you see in the dark corner. The time on the clock was 11:21. This was the exact same time that would be used for the moment of silence to pray, reflect, and mourn what happened at Columbine. Not only that, but the entire Columbine timeline would be based on the fact that the Jefferson County Sheriff's office had recently calibrated its digital clocks used for dispatch tapes with the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) atomic clock in Boulder, Colorado. The first 911 dispatch occurred at 11:21 a.m. local time. It wasn't only the time that matched, but also the clocks themselves. They were both digital.

Maybe you're thinking this is just a coincidence. If so, there is much more to convince you otherwise. First, here are the dates and names of the ministers I personally visited:

June 1998 - Trinity Pentecostal Holiness Church, Pastor David Chastang

August 1998 - Church of the Holy Spirit - Episcopal, Reverend Comforted Keen

August 1998 - Killearn United Methodist Church, Pastor Robert G. Tindale

September 1998 - Bethel A.M.E. Church, Reverend John F. Green

It was a full seven months after my last ministerial meeting that Columbine occurred. It was April 20, 1999, and my day began like any other ordinary day. I was working as a Claims Analyst at the Florida Office of the Attorney General, Bureau of Victim Compensation. That morning, I arrived for work at 7:30 a.m. and began processing benefit payments on behalf of crime victims. Benefits included either medical expenses, mental health counseling, lost wages, disability, or funeral expenses. By late morning, I felt compelled to call my wife, Sharon, and tell her news of something important that couldn't wait until later.

When I called home, it was a little more than an hour and a half before the events at Columbine would begin and the first 911 call would be made. I told Sharon that I had a very strong and sudden prompting from the Holy Spirit that it was time for us to have another baby. This would be our third. In response to my abrupt revelation, she told me that she had just filled her birth control prescription at the pharmacy. That's when I emphatically told her not to take any! We both agreed to discuss this life-changing, life-creating decision when I got home later.

You can clearly see from this next photo that the prescription was filled on 4/20/99 and none of the pills were used. For privacy, I covered certain personal information, but it is evident that the date of when Columbine occurred was not altered. The expiration date on the label also matches the date on the pill packaging.

Most couples, when considering having a baby, might initially think, after witnessing a horrific tragedy like Columbine, "I don't want to bring a child into this crazy (sin-sick) broken world!" But curiously, just the opposite happened. When I arrived home from work and saw for the first time the searing images flash across the television screen of children fleeing in terror from their high school, my decision was about to be firmly made, and thankfully, Sharon agreed. I still had to overcome my lingering doubts about whether or not God was actually leading me to a "yes" decision.

What finally convinced me was hearing the news that some students had been asked by the killers if they believed in God; that by not denying their faith in Him, they were killed. It was then that I began to understand the reason for my sudden prompting to have a child. I knew the decision that Sharon and I were about to make was for a greater purpose and it was somehow directly connected to what happened at Columbine. This belief was why I saved the unused birth control pills, confirming that the date of Columbine was also the date Sharon and I decided to have another child.

Eight months later, we were overjoyed with the news that we were expecting. This, though, seemed especially unusual because it took six months longer than either of our first two children, Rachel and Keith. If you've read the March 30, 2020 post titled, Walking in Darkness, then you already know how God used our first child, Rachel, to speak through the circumstances of her birth. How being born three weeks early on Halloween was an amazing and unmistakable match to the NDE black cat symbol. The resulting story is incredibly detailed in its message, and the odds of it ever occurring by chance are beyond astronomical. Only God Himself could have put it all together!

What then was He going to do now? Would He again speak through the circumstances of a child's birth? All this reminds me of what God said in Jeremiah 1:5: "Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I set you apart." I knew God had a plan, and sooner or later, I'd discover what He was up to. In the meantime, I had to trust Him. Based on what I wrote in the Aug. 8, 2019 post titled, Like the Brightest Sunrise, I was convinced that the plan still included a second son. While I believed that was true, I found out again that I was about to be blessed with another beautiful baby girl.

When the first anniversary of Columbine arrived on April 20, 2000, Sharon was five months pregnant. Our daughter would soon be joining all those born in the 21st century who have never known a world without school shootings. You could call them "Generation Columbine." The day following the Columbine anniversary, my local newspaper ran this Associated Press headline on the front page: "Nation recalls horror." This was when I first learned of the 11:21 a.m. moment of silence and that the time matched my NDE's turning digital clock.

If there hadn't been another connection besides the matching clock times, I might have considered it as mere coincidence. What proved otherwise was the fact that exactly one year to the day earlier, I'd had the sudden and strong prompting to have a baby on the same morning that Columbine occurred. The unused birth control pills dated 4/20/1999 was proof that things were adding up. This was no coincidence! It gets a little eerie when adding in the fact that church bells were also tolling at exactly 11:21, like they were calling us to turn back to God. This wasn't only a spiritual moment; it was a spiritual event! And there is more... Check out this next baby picture.

My daughter, Samantha Elizabeth (Sami), was due to be born on August 12, 2000. This was the OB/GYN's official due date. Based on a later ultrasound and the projected size of the baby at birth, the doctor advised a labor induction, which we scheduled for August 7th. This became Samantha's birth date. With her conception not occurring until seven months after Columbine, that pushed her birthday that much further ahead on the calendar. It also did something remarkable.

When you use a reverse conception calculator to determine when conception occurred, it lands on a period of five days in November of 1999. I've included the calendar to show you the dates. The beginning of her life remarkably and miraculously began, I believe, on November 21, 1999. In other words, on 11/21. The same 11:21 as the NDE and Columbine clock. This exact time, representing the beginning of a New Life!

With Columbine having been a national tragedy, it's necessary that we take a close look at another remarkable conception and birth in order to see the full picture of why this event happened, how it could have been avoided, and what needs to be done now. You should immediately recognize this next youngster not only because she's famous, but because our forefathers determined long ago that we would all have shared custody. We're responsible for her care and development. This is our child, so to speak, a nation that history records as being conceived in liberty! The birth certificate even lists us as her guardians. It states that we are "one people" or "a free people," and a subsequent document affirming our parental guardianship says, "We the people."

It's the Declaration of Independence that's considered the birth certificate of the United States of America. It was a new nation, conceived in liberty, that was born on July 4, 1776. When the "Bill of Rights" of the United States was later ratified in 1791, the first freedom to be listed in Amendment I states: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof." With our nation having been conceived in liberty, isn't it interesting that the first, above all other rights, is freedom of religion? Where did this idea of religious freedom and its extreme importance come from? It came from the time of conception, before the nation was born!

While we can't use a conception calendar calculator to determine when our nation was conceived, what we do know is that America was born on July 4th and that she was conceived in liberty. If we take the calendar back in time to when the idea of religious freedom reached our shores and was firmly established, it's the year 1620. This is the year the Mayflower Pilgrims landed and the Mayflower Compact was signed. What follows is a copy of the compact, and I want you to pay particular attention to the date at the top. Yes, it's another 11/21!

According to our current calendar, the date of conception for our nation was November 21, 1620. This is when the signers of the Mayflower Compact first agreed to join together to govern themselves in a civil body politick (government or a law-making body). According to Authors Joseph Gaer and Ben Siegel, writing in The Puritan Heritage: America's Roots in the Bible, this was "the first application of a religious covenant to civil government in the New World." John Quincy Adams described the compact as the "genesis of American democracy." It became the foundational document of our government and was used as a model for several other social contracts that led to the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.

All of what the Pilgrims endeavored to accomplish was undertaken first, for the glory of God, and second, for the advancement of the Christian faith. It's well known that they sought freedom of religion, to worship God according to their own conscience. What is not generally known is another principal reason why they decided to brave a treacherous ocean crossing to live as pioneers in an untamed and dangerous wilderness. They were determined to risk everything, including their own lives, for the sake of their children.

While they were living in Holland, in order to survive, the children went to work to help bear part of their parents' burdens. Pilgrim Governor William Bradford, in his written account, states how the children, "were often oppressed with their labours, that though their minds were free and willing, their bodies bowed under the weight and became decrepit in early youth, - the vigour of nature being consumed in the very bud, as it were. But still more lamentable, and of all sorrows most heavy to be borne, was that many of the children, influenced by these conditions, and the great licentiousness of the young people of the country, and the many temptations of the city, were led by evil example into dangerous courses...tending to dissoluteness and the danger of their souls, to the great grief of the parents and the dishonor of God. So they saw their posterity would be in danger to degenerate and become corrupt."

In the Preface to Of Plymouth Plantation: Bradford's History of the Plymouth Settlement 1608-1650, Richard "Little Bear" Wheeler writes: "Without the knowledge of the very basis of our Republic, and the understanding of our Founding Fathers, is it any wonder the God-ordained functions of government have been tragically superseded with the making of a tyrannical form of rule? As it was observed concerning the children of Israel just a generation after they were liberated from bondage to Egypt."

"And the people served the Lord all the days of Joshua, who had seen all the great works of the Lord, that He did for Israel...and there arose another generation after them, who knew not the Lord, nor yet the works which he had done for Israel. And the children did evil in the sight of the Lord, and served Baalim" (Judges 2:7, 10b,II). All because they forgot their history!"

Haven't we also, tragically, forgotten our own history and, along the way, forgotten God? This past September 26, 2020, millions took part worldwide while many thousands of others gathered together on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. for an event called The Return. The one overriding purpose for the gathering: "The return to God - individually, corporately, nationally, globally." The end goal being world revival! While speaking at the main event, author and Messianic Jewish Rabbi Jonathan Cahn said: "We drove God out of our hearts, out of our government, out of our ways, out of our laws, out of the education of our children, out of the public squares. Out of our businesses, out of our media, out of our culture, out of our lives."

We've regrettably driven God out of almost everywhere and everything, including, tragically, our public schools. In this, we have paid a terrible price. We see the consequences of this spiritual emptiness by what happened at Columbine and so many other schools since then. It's time, for the sake of our children, to remember our history and reclaim our nation's spiritual and moral heritage. It's time for a change of heart. It's time to respectfully fear God for who He is and honor Him by teaching what's right and wrong according to Judeo-Christian values. But most importantly, it's time we turn back to the God of our Forefathers!

In the book The American Covenant: The Untold Story by Marshall Foster and Mary-Elaine Swanson, it says: "Our Christian foundation and all of the godly institutions that were byproducts of the Biblical faith of our forefathers, are to be passed on as a legacy and we, as Christians, are held accountable for what we do with this unprecedented heritage. Jesus said, 'to whom much is given, much is required.' We had better remember and recount God's history—His story—to our children and to a perishing generation or be prepared to lose our freedom."

In my last two posts, Turn the Corner and The Return, I dramatically showed how the NDE's turning digital clock symbolically represents the first word of the Gospel—Repent! A turning back to God. Now, with the clock's prophetic time exactly matching what happened at Columbine, it should be evidence enough to convince you that the turning clock does, in fact, without a doubt, represent repentance. Even the church bells tolling at 11:21 a.m. are calling us to turn back to God. The time is now! It's time to individually turn back to God in faith and repentance and also time for our nation to return to the Lord as One Nation Under God!

What happened at Columbine was much more than a national tragedy. It was a spiritual event where two hearts were so hardened against God and grossly darkened by their sin that the killers gave themselves over to rebellion, hate, evil, and murder. The subject of my next post will cover just the opposite. Instead of being stiff-necked and refusing to turn back to God, you'll witness a spectacular spiritual transformation that occurs after repenting and turning to Christ by faith.

When the face of the digital clock from my NDE completely turns the corner from darkness to light and from death to life, you'll symbolically witness the glorious conception of a new life that leads to being born again spiritually. When this happens, the dark empty corner below will be miraculously transformed. Just as the Lord said, "I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; I will remove your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh" (Ezekiel 36:26). The dark corner will then be completely filled in to form a new creature, a new creation, made to perfectly reflect the image of God and to, once again, be like Him!