I came across a great posting on Craig Groeschel’s blog by guest blogger Abbi Zeliff.

She wrote about a note her friend Katie wrote before passing away in December of 2007 of  Adult Myeloid Leukemia.

I don’t know the details about when Katie wrote this, was it before she knew she was sick, maybe after a church service or at one of those trips to Starbucks where you plan on just running in to grab a quick coffee and end up in an hour discussion about your faith with another regular, only to go home and spend the rest of the day thinking about how you should have answered the questions that were asked… Maybe she was in her hospital bed waiting for death, thinking about her life, her family, her friends, her God… and then the conversation at Starbucks…

I don’t know why she wrote it, but I am glad she did…

“I am a Christian. Not because my grandfather is, not because his grandfather was…not because Grove Level planned the best activities when I was in middle school. I am a Christian because I have studied the life of Christ and it is good and it is love…and it is triumphant.

I have never thrown my arms up in excitement or run around the sanctuary or shouted out to God during a sermon or fainted or swayed or been “slain in the Spirit” or spoken in tongues…or handled snakes (smile).

It’s all I can do to clap in time to praise music…but I can hear Him whisper and I have felt Him only inches away if any at all and He has touched me and my insides stand in attention and my heart is red and it beats hard and fast and if you turn me inside out like an orange there would be some fantastic celebration with parades and ferris wheels and fireworks and marching bands and jelly beans and pinwheels and fire eaters and hula hoops and…fat ladies in polka dots and lions and popcorn and acrobats.

I pray that you might know my insides and realize that although I don’t believe as you do…I believe with passion and with love and with direction of thought and purpose…not with a simple, gross obedience to a church or a pastor or a cause….All I know is that in the end it will be as God has planned and man can not interfere.

And God is love. Love is everything.

- Katie Hammontree [Whitlow]
Amen (smile)”

You can read the original post by Abbi here.