"There's no easy way to tell you this," lamented the doctor that day in January of 1992. "It's what we feared. A very aggressive type of leukemia. One-third of those diagnosed die within 30 days. I'm sorry."

My wife, Claudia, and I sat in shock. Words choked within us. How could this be? Our daughter, Jenny, was an attractive high-school senior—a straight-A student!—who loved God with all her heart. As the all-star catcher on the softball team at Bullard High School in Fresno, California, she was being recruited by several Division I universities.

As we drove home from the doctor's office, I asked Jenny what she thought. Without hesitation she said, "I just don't want you and Mom to be sad … because I'm not sad. I'm a little nervous about the treatment, but I'm not sad! I know God is in control, and whatever the outcome, I know I am in His will."

Her composure stunned me. At a time when most teenagers would be falling apart, my daughter picked me up, put me on her shoulders and carried me. For the next four years, as she fought this cancer, she showed me what courage—and life—is all about.

Six powerful words
Within days, Jenny began chemotherapy. Because the treatment wiped out her body's ability to make blood, she received at least two transfusions a week. Over time she would use hundreds and hundreds of pints of life-saving blood.

I'd first seen the need for blood in Vietnam when I was 21 and serving as a medic, but I'd never known anyone like Jenny who needed so much blood to stay alive. Not long after she was diagnosed, our local blood bank asked Jenny to attend its annual appreciation luncheon to thank the donors. Claudia and I remember that day clearly. Jenny wore a long dress, and her head was bald. She walked up to the podium and looked out at the 800 regular donors in the audience, held out her hands, and her chin began to quiver: "Thank you … for letting me live."

Six words. The most powerful words a blood donor can hear.

"My body no longer makes blood," Jenny explained, "and every ounce in me belongs to someone else. Your blood may be coursing through my veins right now! Thank you for letting me live."

Jenny understood that those donors were keeping her alive, and she became passionate about increasing the blood supply in our community.

For the next four years, Jenny became the official spokesperson for the Central California Blood Center. She spoke to service groups, schools, and churches throughout the area. She did media interviews and commercials, and even called potential blood donors—sometimes from her hospital bed—all while fighting this insidious disease.

	She never wavered in her faith, nor did she ask God, "Why me?"

Jenny knew the sobering statistics: Less than 5 percent of the population gives blood, yet 97 percent will be affected by a life-saving blood donation—either for themselves, a family member, or close personal friend. She believed if Christians could understand the significance of donating blood, they could meet the blood needs of the whole world. I agreed. Who better to understand the importance of giving blood than those who are covered by the blood of Jesus?

Jenny believed God had given her life a profound purpose that went beyond school or softball or even recovering from leukemia.

She never wavered in her faith, nor did she ask God, "Why me?"

But I did.

The universal donor
I was at my lowest ebb during the summer of 1993, when Jenny was receiving a bone marrow transplant at the Lucille Salter-Packard Children's Hospital at Stanford University. The procedure takes the patient to a point where she has no immune system left, and any kind of germ could kill her.

That particular moonlit night, I rested under a big bay window in her hospital room. Jenny was asleep. Sleep was precious to her then. I was feeling lonely and vulnerable, and I began to sob softly. In that moment, I asked, Why, God? Why is this happening to her? She loves You so much. Where are You?

Then I sensed in my spirit a still, small voice saying: "Here I am, Dean. Here I am." My eyes focused to the right of her bed. The moon coming in the window illuminated the iv pole, casting the shadow of a huge cross on the wall. "Here I am, Dean." On the pole was a bag of blood.

In that instant, I thought of the life-giving blood that poured out of Jesus as He hung on the cross. Later I wondered about His blood type. Surely He was O-negative, the universal donor. That blood can save anyone.

Through that long night, as God comforted me, I thought about the three main components of blood—red blood cells, white blood cells, and platelets—and considered how they each represent Him.

Red blood cells are like God the Father, the author of life. They bring oxygen, the breath of life, to every cell in our body. White blood cells are like God the Son, our advocate and defender. They fight against that which infects us. Platelets are like God the Holy Spirit, our healer. They are sticky cells that rush to the site when we are cut and form a clot that closes the wound and helps us heal.

I gasped, astonished to see the Trinity so clearly revealed in the blood.

In the days that followed, I began searching the Scriptures for more understanding about the significance of blood. In Leviticus 17:10-11, I read that life is in the blood. Blood was given as an atonement. Blood belonged to God, to be poured out before Him in sacrifice.

Four precious years
When Jenny died on October 28, 1995, a month before her 22nd birthday, she lost her battle with leukemia, but she fulfilled her purpose in life. Just before she died, I promised her that I would carry on that work. To me, it was like receiving a spiritual transfusion.

At Jenny's memorial service, I urged people to give blood in her memory and to consider becoming regular donors (giving every eight weeks). For many, the importance of donating blood finally hit home. I gave my first speech two days after we buried Jenny, speaking in her place at a Rotary Club meeting.

Hundreds of faithful donors kept our daughter alive and gave us almost four more years together—a gift beyond measure. Four precious years that Jenny enjoyed as she finished high school and started college, an optimistic pre-med major. Four years of celebrating birthdays, Christmases, and family outings. That's what blood donors gave us. Not just blood, but four more years for this father to watch his daughter mature into a young woman and fall in love with a wonderful young man. Four more years of father-daughter talks into the wee hours of the morning, just the two of us.

Not just blood, but memories to last a lifetime.
The critical importance of having blood to transfuse was vividly illustrated in 1996 when the wife of nfl All-Star Jerry Rice had a crisis during the birth of their third child. As Jackie Rice began to deliver the afterbirth, her uterine wall ripped and she began to hemorrhage uncontrollably. Doctors went through 200 units of blood as they worked feverishly to keep her from bleeding to death. Thankfully, they did.

	"Your blood may be coursing through my veins right now," Jenny told donors."Thank you for letting me live."

If a celebrity like Jerry Rice had gone on television and asked for help, tens of thousands would have rushed to give blood, but that wouldn't have saved Jackie's life. The blood had to be there before she needed it, because it takes two to three days to process blood.

Interestingly, during the time Jenny was receiving blood, the Central California Blood Center wasn't collecting enough blood to meet its own needs for serving a five-county area of more than a million people and 30 hospitals. In fact, the Center had to import 50 to 100 pints of blood every month.

I continued to urge people to give blood and became increasingly passionate about the cause. I realized then that Jenny's purpose had become my own.

From mortgages to plasma
During Jenny's treatment, I came to realize how vital blood management was to our community and especially to families like ours. You can have the best hospitals and the best physicians that money can buy, but if you need blood and don't have it, nothing else matters.

In 1997 the Central California Blood Center needed a new president and ceo, and I decided to apply. It would mean a 70 percent decrease in salary, but that paled in comparison to the fervor I felt about fulfilling my promise to Jenny. After working 29 years as a successful mortgage banker, I believed God was leading me into a new career—as a blood banker. However, the position went to an internal candidate.

Despite tremendous disappointment, I made a decision to continue my volunteer involvement as the Center's chief ambassador, speaking on their behalf throughout the Valley. I felt a true sense of calling to lead the Blood Center, and I was not ready to give up.

When the job opened up again nearly two years later, I repeated the entire interview process and waited while the board of directors did a nationwide search. This time, the job was mine.

In November 1999 I became president and ceo of the Central California Blood Center and worked hard to turn around the Center's blood deficit. In the last six years—in what I believe is the direct confirmation of my calling—we have not had to import even one pint!

In fact, today we export between 500 and 1,000 units of blood every month to other blood centers in need. In one two-day period in July 2007, for instance, we sent life-saving shipments to blood banks on the other side of the country in Buffalo, Pensacola, and Boston.

I believe God promised me that Jenny's legacy would be that our Blood Center would always have more than enough; that whenever a tragedy happened anywhere in the country, other blood centers would know we'd be full and that we would share. And that's exactly what has happened.

Individual names aren't available, but I know that thousands and thousands of lives around the country have been prolonged or saved because Jenny fulfilled her purpose in life and helped me rediscover mine.

This year, we will collect 67,000 units of blood—a 69 percent increase from when I started eight years ago! But it's not numbers that keep me going forward with confidence and purpose. Echoing in my heart are the voices I need every hour of every day.

God's still, small voice: "Here I am, Dean. Here I am."

Jenny's voice, speaking to donors: "Thank you for letting me live."

My own voice, a whispered prayer: "Not my will, Lord, but Yours."

To find out where you can donate blood, call toll-free 1-888-USBLOOD for the blood center nearest you. Get more info at www.americasblood.org.

Sandi Tompkins is an award-winning writer and Pulitzer Prize nominee who teaches writing, mentors authors, and edits books in Kailua-Kona, Hawaii.

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