BURLESON, Texas — Pathway Church senior pastor Rick Owen saw a message of strength and faith in the death of 6-year-old Raven Goff.
"I think that brought everybody together in a very powerful way,” Owen said. “It was love.”
On January 11, Raven arrived at Cook Children’s Medical Center with a traumatic brain injury she wouldn’t recover from.
"It kind of sunk in this morning, just the weight of what this whole community was feeling all along,” Owen said. “I just realized I’m never going to see her again.”
Her family made the decision to donate her organs, saving several lives.
"People want something positive to come out of something so negative and so tragic,” Raven’s pediatric ICU nurse Dani Ransonette said.
"One minute she was gone,” Owen said. “The next second, somebody's prayer on the other side of the world was kind of being answered who needed a heart for their little child.”
Family and hospital staff lined the walls for Raven's honor walk.
"They're going to walk out without the most prized possession in their life and that's a burden that I bear because I can't give her back to them,” Ransonette said.
According to Cook Children’s, 23 other families have donated organs or tissue of their children in the past year.
Her passing has generated support across the world spreading photos with the hashtag #CravinRaven.
Wednesday, nearly 2,000 people attended her service. Nine thousand more watched a livestream online.
"It doesn't surprise me. It encourages me,” Owen said. "People are looking for good, something to latch on to.”
Owen says it’s allowed for tragedy to create happiness.
"It just gave people hope,” he said. “Tragedy can turn out to something good if people make good choices.”
Fundraisers set up for Raven's mother and father have been set up online for those wanting to donate.