One sentence...

I have been sitting at my computer my about a hour trying to figure out how I should word this post. After emailing some friends and thinking, I still have no fat clue how to word this eloquently. So here it is...

My friend Dani died on Thanksgiving. She was 21 years old. She had been battling cancer since she was 11 (if I recall correctly) I have know her for about as long as she had cancer. We first met at a camp for kids with cancer, probably 8-9 years back. It was just a passing friendship until this summer. We meet again at Camp HIS KIDS, another camp for kids with cancer and their siblings. I was a group leader and she was a counselor in my cabin. Because of our small group size and amount of time together we became good friends, quickly. God connected us quickly for the conversations to come.

During and after camp Dani and I had some amazing conversations about God, faith, eternal life and what all of that looked like. I spent days freaking out about how I was going to talk to her about it at camp, and God orchestrated it perfectly. (More on that later, I am sleepy!) We talked about death a lot, it was heavy on her heart. We both knew she was dying.

As I look back on it now I can see how much our conversations meant to me and her. I talked to her just a week ago about church stuff. She was frustrated that her current church wasn't preaching the gospel. This coming from the scared girl who was afraid to tell people at church that she lived with her boyfriend, although she knew it was wrong she didn't want to be "judged." I spent a while after I found out that she had died replaying every word that came from my mouth in conversations and emails. Had I told her about salivation? Did she know that Jesus was THE WAY? And on and on. I know that the answer to all of my questions was yes. I was pretty sure of her salvation when we last met from lunch. The enemy was just whispering doubt into my heart.

After praying to only focus on God's promises and truth, I found her obiturary online. We had talked about how she was going to write it, and how she had been through draft after draft. As I read, I knew they were her words. This one sentence has changed my life.

"She chose to be an organ donor as she realized her eternal life was before her."