I have in my hands Amber Nicole Metz’s “Breathtaking.” Amber has been battling cystic fibrosis for her entire life. After nineteen years, her lungs were useless and needed to be replaced. The book is a collection of letters and emails documenting her time as she waited for the double lung transplant. One would expect that being so near to death for so long that Amber would have descended into a morbid outlook on life. The back of the book calls her personal testimony “A modern-day twist on C.S. Lewis’ A Grief Observed.” That book really was dark! Even if it was edifying and comforting, it was dark. Amber’s testimony is filled with hope and light. “Breathtaking” is an encouragement to all who struggle against circumstance and points the way to Amber’s source: God himself.

One gets the idea early on that Amber does not have a push-over soul. Her friends contributed their own accounts of Amber’s situation. Her constant coughing fits- her inability even to enjoy humor, because laughing hurt so bad- her optimism in the face of impending death, her rides through the countryside ‘chasing the sun,’ these anecdotes and more help us learn about what kind of woman Amber is. Through her emails and letters to friends and family, Amber consistently shares why she is the kind of woman she is.