he first gunshot sounded like a car backfiring and didnt frighten me at all. The second bullet rang through the campus and awakened in me an emotion that soon became terror. When the third shot missed me by 18 inches, I instinctively snapped my head to the side and saw the bullet lodged in a stucco building. Had I stepped a bit closer to that building on my way to the dorm, I would have been a dead student. I spent a precious microsecond checking myself and realized I was intact.

My gut said to run, and I did.

Books fell to the ground, class notes flew to the wind. I had no idea where the shooter was or why he had fired at me. My only instinct was to get to my room, and the shortest distance was through the Biology building.

I charged into the nearest entrance, headed down the hall, making first a right turn and then a left.

Bursting out the other side, I confronted a surreal scene. Several students were running frantically like me, others seemed oblivious and were strolling as usual. A few were pointing up at the university tower.

I bounded down the steps, onto the sidewalk and almost slammed into a red Mustang. The driver, apparently unaware that a gunman held the campus under siege, motioned for me to cross the street in front of him. I did. When I got to the other side, the killer squeezed off another round, hitting the driver whose eyes I had just met. His car swerved, the door fell open and his body slumped left. I just saw a man die.

One block stood between me and safety. I ran the race, crouching near a hedge as up ahead of me the dorm mother threw open a door. "Hes in the tower," she screamed before the door swung shut. "Make a run for it when I open it again. Start now!" Timing my last few yards of the sprint to arrive before the heavy oak door fell shut a second time, I collapsed into her arms. She quickly hugged me, then freed up her hands. Another dorm resident would need her help to make that treacherous run, and then another.

I suddenly realized I had been in the snipers direct line of fire at least four times. The tower loomed 27 stories over The University of Texas, its observation deck visible, where Charles Whitman hid with his arsenal. If I could see it, then he could see me, I thought as I struggled to return my breathing to normal.

Dorm residents materialized, welcoming each girl who burst through the heavy swinging door like she was a war refugee. And we were, it seemed.

Whitman, an architecture student who dressed as a workman that day and toted his weapons to the top of the tower via its elevator, held siege for an hour and a half. The nation watched in horror as the whole thing was broadcast live on TV.

I was in my room now, trying to control the shakes. Out my windows I saw policemen and state troopers and ordinary citizens of Austin kneeling behind car doors firing everything from long-range pistols to pump-action shotguns. Bullets ricocheted throughout the campus, many with deafening blasts. Shouts and screams followed as his gunfire rained down from the tower. No one, it seemed for the longest, could stop this madman.

Finally, two brave police officers, ready to sacrifice their lives if necessary, made it up 27 flights of stairs (Whitman had disabled the elevators), stepping silently onto the open-air observation deck, guns drawn and ready. One crept up behind Whitman and brought him down.

Now came the aftermath. When word of the snipers death spread, the campus became a beehive as students, professors, citizens and rescue personnel scurried about to locate and retrieve the bodies. (The count: 17 dead, 31 wounded.) Blood was everywhere. So were bullet holes and other signs of a sunny day turned to terror. UT looked like a war zone, with the dead being lifted onto gurneys. The wounded were being taken away in ambulances now parked every which way on sidewalks and grassy areas where, on any other afternoon, students might stretch out to relax and study.

I must have missed this on the news, you may be thinking. Not unless you were around on August 1, 1966. It was the first mass killing in America, holding the dubious record for the most deaths until the Oklahoma City bombing.

I was still a teenager on that summer day, andlike mostI assumed nothing could happen to me. I learned different. (When police reconstructed the snipers siege based on forensic evidence and eyewitness reports, I found out that the first two shots I heardright before the one meant for mehad killed people.) But our God is so good. Although rarely does a day go by that I dont recall that event and relive the terror I felt, He used that tragedy to show me His love. And He taught me how to use my experience for evangelism.

Following are some lessons Ive learned. With violence so common in the newsand on our minds and heartsperhaps these can help as you share your faith in Christ with neighbors, friends and co-workers when the subject turns to personal safety.

• Well never fully understand or comprehend why God allows one person to die and another to live. As the years pass by, well see how God uses the death or life of an individual to help us grow in our faith and draw closer to Him, if we cooperate with His plan for our lives. But some questions remain unanswered, and we must trust that He will explain these things when we are with Him in heaven.

Principle: God is in control and has a plan for my life.

• Part of Gods goodness is that He has given us the freedom to choose our actions. Some people choose to reject His love and do evil. Evil is so clear in events like the mass killings that plague our society, but the truth is that each of us has chosen wrong things.

Principle: Sin separates us from God.

• No act of violence or death can be worse than the one Jesus suffered on the cross. The news about violence opens the door for our sharing this grim but important truth. When a conversation about my experience becomes too mired down in "Wow! What did you do next? How did you feel?" I try to answer the questions, of course, but I also turn the attention back to the Lord, the One of Whom they should be in awe, not me. But, with the fear thats gripping our society, its fair to spend time on emotions in the course of sharing Christ. I find listening to how they feel in response to our discussion of violence works better than recreating what I felt at the time I was nearly killed. It makes them deal personally with how sin and evil affect their lives.

Principle: Jesus died for my sins.

• I can be safe. On every other day of my life except that one, no one has fired a gun in my direction! This may sound silly, butwith so much news about crimeits easy to feel that life is chaotic. Thats not true. God created a wonderful world for us with much pleasure and joy and happiness. Birds sing, ice cream tastes great, friends and I laugh and one day Ill go to heaven. God has a resolution for my sins that is lasting and perfect.

Principle: I can be saved by grace through faith in Jesus Christ.

Carolyn Curtis is editor of On mission.