Katie Brown was only 11 when she passed away.

I felt a special connection to Katie because her dad had lived with Jim and me when he was a teenager. He married, had 3 children, and the oldest was Katie.

Katie was diagnosed with sarcoma cancer when she was about nine. She endured chemo and everything that surrounds that treatment. We all celebrated at times when her prognosis was favorable or when her cancer was finally in remission. At one point, she was cancer-free. But several weeks later it all came back with a vengence and the end came fairly quickly.

While Katie was still alive and struggling with this disease, she had periods of time when she was well enough to attend school, with the help of a chemo backpack. During one of her classes, she had a writing assignment which was autobiographical in nature. In it, she talked about her cancer and about how as difficult as the pain had been to endure, it had actually produced a gift.

And what was that gift? "I have become more real."

She talked about how the pain had stripped away every thing that was artificial in her life and had only left her with her true essence -- pretty mature words for a child of her age.

While none of us would choose pain, I wonder if there is truly any other method God can allow to strip away the dross and reveal the true beauty that is within each of us. Not that God causes the pain, but His glory can be revealed through it.