Losing a best friend to death, or even simply by falling out of contact over the years, is so hard. Tammy Bulger’s story explains this sort of loss in such a moving way. This was first published in March of this year and bears sharing again.

I lost my best friend 18 years ago. She committed suicide and I’ve often wished that I had more time with her; she was 17. I was 16.

Angel and I had been friends for 7 years; she was a riot.

She was a very beautiful person who had a lot stacked against her in her life. She lived with abuse her whole life and finally believed that it just didn’t make sense for her to gut it out any longer.

If I had five minutes with her, I would encourage her to not take her life (obviously), but I would also want to tell her that we are created to live eternally. Even after our bodies are dust, our souls–that which makes us “us”–continues.

I would tell her that amazing news that the God who created her has an amazing plan for her and that He died for her sins and to give her a place in Our Father’s arms.

I would tell her that what she was going through was never part of God’s plan for His creation, but that the gift of free will can be a double-edged sword that brings hurts and pain into our lives.

But this free will also allows us to choose to love God and the sacrifice He made.

I would encourage her to choose to accept that Christ died for her and to live eternally with Him.

Because I know that I know that I know, all sins are nailed to the cross when He covers a believer with His righteousness, even suicide.

But I would hope that she wouldn’t chose to end her life and to live it instead for the Author of her Life.

Lastly, I would tell her I love her.

And even if I got to choose again whether or not to have befriended her at age nine, I would most certainly choose to be her friend.

I loved her dearly and there’s rarely a week that goes by that I don’t think of her.

Editor’s Note: Tawnya Bulger is owner and founder of Tate Publishing in North Dakota, where she writes and sells her books including “Katrina: Growing Wings.”