She was just a few paces past 40 when she stared down widow-hood like a looming spectral in the night. Her husband, also in his early forties, ran regularly at a local track. One day, with no prior health issues, he suddenly collapsed. Another runner raced to his side and performed CPR until emergency personnel arrived. Defibrillator paddles shocked his heart back from the brink; but life was touch-and-go for days afterwards. With tears streaming from soul-deep, and trying to comfort two small children, she proclaimed her trust in God and her unwavering faith in His goodness.

Now, two years later, her spirit gleams, vibrant and multi-faceted. Even as her husband was forced to leave the job he loved last month due to on-going health challenges, and even as she daily faces uncertainty about additional bouts of emergency situations, she is the first and the most insistent to proclaim, “God is good, all the time.”

I made this mobile for her for her birthday last week, inspired by the lyrics of a song we both love called Beautiful Things by Gungor. It is my humble attempt to honor the pain and struggle of her journey, my admiration for her “faith of greater worth than gold” (1 Peter 1:7), and my own faith that, yes, God makes beautiful things. I know He does, because I see it in her.

Witnessing faith in another person’s life is always a gift; but when that faith sings through the dark watches of the valley of the shadow of death, now that is hauntingly beautiful.