Rachel.

Let me tell you about Rachel. When Ben and I first started attending our church a couple years ago, we both noticed her right away: Rachel was that girl in the choir, the one who was always smiling. Perpetually smiley people are rare to come across. I mean, have you tried it before? It's a workout for the face, I tell ya. Plus, not many people have enough happiness and joy going on in their minds for it to spill out in smile-form almost all day long. So there you go: Fact #1 about Rachel.

Over the years, we've been able to slowly get better acquainted with her. I don't remember now who approached who, but about a year ago she and I started getting together once a week for breakfast. Over toasted bagels we shared about spiritual struggles, learned about each other's backgrounds, laughed about my kids' latest antics, and excitedly discussed details of her upcoming wedding. Rachel is just a couple years younger than me, but each of our visits solidified a small notion in my heart: Like a little boy yearns to mimic the heroics of Superman, I longed to be more like my pure-hearted, Godly friend.

Her wedding came and went. The ceremony was gorgeous (but not as beautiful as the bride!) and so intensely sweet that you almost felt uncomfortable watching her and her Stephen exchange vows. There was a yummy dessert reception and then off they sped to their honeymoon, the rest of us sighing and smiling and excitedly anticipating what kind of life spread out before these two people of so many admirable traits.

And then Rachel was sick. Was it a month, two, after they got married? She was very sick. We all prayed for her at church, we prayed for her at the hospital, and I prayed for her quietly as I did dishes on Monday mornings, the mornings we normally had our breakfast chats. There was a gaping hole where she was missed in the choir and a general soberness lay over the congregation as we waited and pleaded that Rachel would someday sit with us again.

Praise God, she did.

But she was not the same Rachel. She had dipped into that area called chronic illness that most of us only hear of... a plateau of life changes that were startling for those who knew her and obviously, cataclysmically more altering for her. We meet when we can now and exchange e-mails when we can't. We compare rough days but more often than not, we're still trading optimistic musings about where God is taking us.

So she really is the same Rachel, after all. Gandalf the White was still Gandalf after all that Moria messyness, and she is still the smiley-est person I've ever met. After all that's said and done and changed, you'd think I'd have morphed into a super-friend, or some improved mega-servant of a person who appeared with what was most needed. Without ever addressing it directly, though, Rachel again has been the one teaching me along the way. While I sit pondering how to be there for her, a cheerful message with her name on it will pop into my inbox. And the smile -as unreally present as it may be- is genuine and full of truth if you ask her about it: She's known all along that it's not about super-friends or mega-servants (although they fill the journey with much-needed comfort and laughs); the essential Person in every moment, be it a light one and especially if it's a dark one, is God.

This morning at church, she startled me as she introduced the song she was going to sing for the congregation, mentioning that some days, she just cries and cries over the changes the last year has brought. I couldn't imagine Rachel crying and crying. Then she sang and we all enjoyed the treat that is her voice as it tinkled out from behind the piano, rippling over the congregation. Our friend, our dear sister, was showing us God in a song and for a second, I became uncomfortable the way I did during her wedding, as if I'd been dragged involuntarily to observe something my eyes just couldn't behold properly. But then I looked up and took note of each person sitting near me and I realized: Every single of one us was smiling. She'd made us all smile, a pond of gratitude and joy to God that mirrored perfectly for several minutes what she herself reflects in her everyday persona.

I am so grateful she wants to share bagels with me, and she's still my Superman. Maybe someday I'll grow up to be more like her.