AMAZING STORY
Sara Weaver: Remembering Ruby Ridge
By William Wiegman and Tim Smith
The 700 Club
Original Air Date: January 6, 2011
CBN.com
– The Ruby Ridge incident of 1992 was an infamous standoff involving the FBI, U.S. Marshals and the barricaded family of Randy Weaver.
Earlier, Randy was arrested on federal firearms charges for making sawed-off shotguns. After he missed his court date, he was declared a fugitive. He also refused to allow federal agents on his property. That’s when bad turned to worse.
His daughter Sara was only 16 years old. She tells The 700 Club, "I remember a dog sounding the alarm. They started barking, and I thought, 'Oh, well maybe somebody’s coming up to visit. Maybe it’s a friend of mine.'"
Down the path from the house, U.S. Marshals confronted Randy, Sara’s brother Sam and a friend named Kevin Harris. She heard gunfire.
"That freaked me out. I knew something bad was happening."
A U.S. Marshal and Sam were shot and killed in the skirmish. She says, "He was 14. He was my best friend."
The standoff continued until the next day, and there was one more victim.
Sara’s mother, Vicki, was shot and killed while standing on her front porch.
Sara was standing right beside her mom when it happened.
"Where I was, where she was, where Dad was – I should be dead. 'Cause I was right next to her. I struggled with that for a lot of years. Why I am still alive?"
Randy was sentenced to 18 months in prison for his original failure to appear in court. Sara and her sisters moved to Iowa to live with her maternal grandparents.
"It was hard, though, because they were grieving, we were grieving. It was a totally different world than what we were used to. I felt like an alien most of the time."
Sara finished high school and moved with her sisters to Grand Junction, Iowa, to be with their dad, who had been released from prison
"It was a huge relief. I was very excited about that."
Three years later, in a wrongful death suit against the federal government, Sara and her family won a $3.1 million dollar settlement – $100,000 to randy and $1 million to each daughter.
"Really? Would you trade your Mom and your brother for that? It felt degrading."
Sara used her money to buy some land in Marion, Montana. She and her fiancé David moved there in 1997.
"I missed the mountains. They were in my blood."
In 2001, Sara and David had a son, Dawson, and moved into their new home. It should have been a joyous occasion. But she was miserable.
"I thought that the house was going to make me happy. It was always the next. If I could do this, I’ll be happy. I gained 60 pounds with my pregnancy, and it was like, if I can just be thin again, I’ll be happy. My then husband handed me a pen and a piece of paper, and was like, 'Write down what’s going to make you happy.' I had nothing I could write down. I didn’t know."
She continues, "I was sick and tired of being depressed. I had hit rock bottom. I didn’t know where to go from there. I started to search and one day my best friend from Idaho, Maria, was visiting me. It was perfect timing."
Maria told her about the joy and peace found only in Jesus Christ.
"She looked me in the eye and said, 'I know Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior.' She didn’t argue with me and she didn’t try to debate things with me. She just made that statement. That would not leave me alone for anything. I had known her for years. I trusted her, and I believed her when she said it even though I didn’t know who He was."
Sara embarked on a quest for truth. She suddenly had the need to read her Bible.
"I went to John 3:16. It was the only verse I’d ever known. I read it. What happened was the beginning of a huge change for me. I felt my depression start to lift. I wanted to read more and more and more of the Bible. It was like God was speaking directly to me. It was life changing. It was freedom. It was peace. It was joy. It was everything that was missing. It was that hole in my heart just getting filled up."
As Sarah grew closer to God, her husband grew further away. She says, "The more I chased after God and His will for my life and the closer I got to the Lord, it seemed the bigger the gap got in my relationship."
Sara and David divorced in 2007, and she married Mark on Valentine’s Day of 2010.
"Every day’s an adventure with God and with my husband."
As God had forgiven Sara, she understood that she needed to forgive others –
including the men who killed Sam and her mother.
"If Jesus can go through that on the cross and forgive me, then of course I can forgive anyone anything. What I want to get across to everyone watching is that forgiveness, hands down, is the point of this story. It’s the reason I’m talking about Ruby Ridge again.
"I’ll never forget what happened, and I live with what they did every single day, but my hope for them is that they would find the same freedom in Christ that I have found. I don’t know what God has in store for me tomorrow, let alone, years from now. That’s what’s so awesome, because I know I can trust Him with my life. I’m never alone."
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