I saw the title Letter to my readers upon my death, and I was undone. I huddled in the corner of my sofa, sobs rolling over me. I had missed Kara’s “voice” the last few weeks–that special gift she had for piercing the heart with truth in such a sweetly compelling way. I hadn’t expected to hear it again this side of heaven. And yet, here it was, a final post reaching back from eternity in a bittersweet goodbye. Tears blurring the words, I stared at my Facebook page and exhaled a deep, shuddering breath. It was like looking at the last gift under the Christmas tree. You want to open it so badly, and yet you wish you could just leave it there because you know when you open it, that’s it. There’s no more.

You see, Jesus took home a treasure on March 22. A treasure named Kara Tippetts. I never had the privilege of meeting her or talking with her. And yet when my 5-year-old daughter asked me why I was crying, I stumbled through an explanation about who Kara was until she simply asked, “Is Kara your friend, Mom?” “Yes, sweetheart, yes.” And in all the ways that count, it is the best word to describe how I feel about her.

I stumbled onto Kara Tippetts’ blog Mundane Faithfulness last fall and was instantly hooked. She was a Christ-follower, a young mom, a pastor’s wife facing terminal cancer. She wrote with utter heart, words that tore into my soul, convicting and encouraging all in the same breath. And always, her posts pointed to Christ. Christ. Christ. Christ.

I don’t think I have ever afforded to a virtual stranger such a tender place in my heart. As her health worsened and death drew near, I struggled to articulate to family and friends just why exactly I was feeling such a deep sense of connection to Kara and her family.

Certainly, Kara embraced suffering. She embodied the idea of suffering well, struggling for a tender, transformed heart even as God wrote a story with her life that she didn’t want. Kara wrote with raw transparency and poignant honesty. Her painful submission to God’s plan and her sharp sorrow over leaving her “loves” simmered in her words. Pondering the sweet photos of Kara with her family and friends that appeared on her blog often built a knot of sadness in my throat. But as I really considered just what made me sit up and notice Kara, what made me take her so to heart, it’s that Kara made me sit up and notice Jesus.

Because I only started following Kara’s blog a few months ago, I’d only ever seen photos of her while she was ill until recently. I read a story about her and came across a photo of Kara and her husband taken before she was sick. In it, she has a long, glorious mane of blond hair and a megawatt smile. It was a vision of Kara I’d never seen. And yet, when I look at the cancer-ravaged pictures of Kara, those are the ones that most take my breath away. There is this deeply serene God-light in her eyes, a beauty not of this world that radiates, outshining the grief and pain. It is the light of one whose eyes are fixed on Jesus. It is the light of one whose love is fixed on Jesus. It is the light of the Spirit shining where He is abundantly welcomed. You couldn’t read Kara’s words without knowing that she absolutely adored Jesus and fought to trust Him fully in all the hard places He led her. She painfully chronicled her doubts and fears, and yet she always ended with this testimony–that Jesus would be there with the grace she needed. Kara’s honest admission of need always met with a resolute declaration of faith.

One of the many beautiful things about the Gospel accounts of the time leading up to Jesus’ crucifixion is His prayer for the disciples and those who would believe in Him in generations to come. What selfless love that Christ’s thoughts were directed toward His followers even as the climax of His own suffering approached. In this too, Kara showed me Jesus. Reading her blog, I was always blown away by her overwhelmingly other-centered perspective. You would expect someone dying from cancer to be somewhat focused on their own sense of pain and loss. But Kara always seemed eminently concerned with how her illness and death affected others–her husband, children, family, and friends. As I read her final post, this letter she had composed to be published after her death, I was overcome by her tender expression of gratitude toward her community of blog followers and her passionate plea to pray for her family. Even in her last words, she was gently comforting us “strangers” who mourn her passing and sweetly directing our hearts toward her precious family. All I could think was, There you go again, Kara. Only a heart filled with Jesus can bleed love so abundantly to others.

I don’t know if Kara’s family will ever read this, but no tribute to Kara would be complete without addressing her dearest loves. Jason, Ella, Harper, Lake, and Story Jane–you are the ones for whom my heart is broken. The hard just keeps crashing down, and the empty places must seem huge. But God has you. Oh, how He has you. I pray God’s Presence will be so sweetly near and real to each of you. And may the legacy of faith that your wife and mama left bloom in you until that sweet moment when you all come together again in Jesus.

For a woman whose blog was named Mundane Faithfulness, Kara’s faith was anything but mundane. It was epic and beautiful and convicting. When I first heard of Kara’s death, I thought, Man, I’d love to see what Kara would write about that moment when her eyes locked with Jesus. On second thought though, I’m guessing Kara had no words, just consuming joy as Jesus hugged her home. I couldn’t wish anything better for a friend.