Father's Day is supposed to be a joyful occasion. But, for me, the day will now always be linked to the memory of an event that changed my family forever.

Last June my daughter, Bridget, a first-grade teacher in Killeen, Texas, sent me a Father's Day card saying how much she looked forward to a summer of visits and travel. The first day of the season, though, brought a painful halt to her hopeful plans.

On June 21 Bridget was raped, shot three times, and left for dead. She survived, some say miraculously. Now it's a year later, yet we all feel years older.

This Father's Day, my wife and I stood in prayerful thanks—grateful for our 25-year-old daughter, wise and strong; for an Army veteran who opened his door in the middle of the night; and to all who helped her get this far.

I give thanks that Bridget never gave in to death and that she never bought in, even for a second, to the age-old scourge of many survivors of rape—the so-called stigma of a sexual assault.

She is not diminished, she is not stigmatized, she is not shamed. Those words describe her attacker, not her.

Bridget is a resilient young woman whose faith in God—and in the compassion of strangers—has only been strengthened by this tragedy.

Recovery, though, is a long road. And a difficult one. She still walks it, as does the rest of our family.

On the Thursday after Father's Day, Bridget wrote encouraging notes to some of her past year's first-graders. That night she picked up a girlfriend, the librarian at her school, from the airport in Austin. The flight arrived at midnight, and they drove 80 miles home to Killeen.

After dropping off her friend, Bridget returned to her apartment complex. As she got out of her car, she saw a man in the distance but gave it little thought.

She locked two deadbolts behind her and prepared for bed. Minutes later, she heard a frighteningly loud bang at her door. She looked out the peephole and saw a man run up and again kick the door—which hit her in the face, knocking her down.

The man, the one she had seen minutes earlier, stuck a gun in her chest and ordered her to her car. (A neighbor later told police he heard the door being kicked and a woman scream, but looked out and saw no struggle as a couple walked to a car, so he didn't call 911.)

The assailant drove and made Bridget withdraw $200 from a nearby ATM. As he drove farther, she prayed aloud. He told her to shut up.

Trying to make him see her as a person, she told him she was a teacher. Didn't he remember any of his teachers? She talked about her pupils. He was unmoved.

He drove past a new subdivision and into a vacant field, full of weeds and gravel, ordering her out of the car and forcing her to disrobe. She ran, but he caught her and pressed the cold metal gun against her. She told him, "God doesn't want you to do this."

He did it at gunpoint. During her horror, she prayed to survive—but she knew what would come next.

These, she said, were the worst moments, when she thought she would die in an ugly field far from her family. The rapist didn't want to look her in the eyes as he killed her, so he told her to turn around.

From about five feet away, he fired a 9 mm bullet into her back, just left of her spine. The bullet missed her heart and exited below her left breast. She fell.

He stood over her and fired again. The bullet entered her upper-left buttock, ripped through her colon and exited just above the pubic area. For good measure, he fired again, the third bullet slashing across her lower back and creasing the flesh of her right elbow.

Somehow she played dead. He drove off, and she began crawling. Bridget tried to get up but fell, fearing she would pass out and bleed to death.

Then, she says, she felt she was lifted up by God. She rose—and was amazed that her legs worked.

She walked, stumbled and ran 200 yards to homes. She tried one house, where a terrified woman didn't open the door but, at 3:41 A.M., did call 911.