The Sacramentality of Sunsets

Cait Winters shares how God gives her comfort through the beauty of creation. 

Since I was small, my favorite time of day has been the dusk. When the sun looms near and the light turns warm and golden. One of my earliest memories is running barefoot in grass and humid summer air under a vibrant, cotton-candy sky, pink and orange clouds glowing against an infinite violet canvas. The beauty of those summer skies continued to captivate me as I grew. I often found myself waiting until the last light faded to finally head inside.  

It wasn’t just the dazzling displays that left me in awe. I would use that time to sit in silence, to think, to pray. I still find comfort in sunsets.   

Eyes to the Sky 

2025 held one of the most difficult experiences of our lives with the sudden sickness of our oldest daughter. She had been hospitalized at this point for several weeks, and so many prayers had been answered. Her condition and prognosis were amazingly good, and there seemed to be a happy end in sight.  

Things were tedious, but we were grateful and looking forward to welcoming her back home. I was spending all the time I could at the hospital, rotating in and out with family to ensure she didn’t have to be alone. I had run home to eat and see our other three children while my mother came to sit with her. I was just settling in when she called to tell me to come back to the hospital right away. 

Hallelujah! Praise, you servants of the Lord, praise the name of the Lord. Blessed be the name of the Lord both now and forever. From the rising of the sun to its setting, let the name of the Lord be praised. (Psalm 113:1-3) 

A physician had stopped in after I left to say that imaging showed an issue with her lungs. They were ordering further tests and beginning treatment right away. I dropped everything and ran back to my car. I drove back to the hospital with my heart in my throat, praying the whole way.  

When I arrived, my daughter was sleeping. My mother told me that she took the news okay but, naturally, was scared. 

My heart was broken. Not only was this an unexpected setback in her recovery, but I wasn’t there to comfort her in that time of need. By this time in her hospitalization, she had graduated from critical and intensive care. The window of her second-floor room overlooked a street descending to the waterfront below. This offered a long and unobstructed view of the evening sky which was bursting with color.   

Colorful Consolation 

I couldn’t help but stare as emotions swirled within me. Suffering and hope mingled like the airbrushed clouds streaking through the horizon. I felt familiar comfort reaching out through the natural beauty of the sunset. It was like God was shining His love into the darkness of that moment. Though night was closing in, the light would come again. And so it did.  

We found out that the type of complication she suffered was treatable and less dangerous than originally feared. Incredibly, this was her only long-term complication, and a few months of medicine and special tests prior to discharge was all it took to heal.  

It’s amazing how the Holy Spirit finds us where we are. Whether a cathedral or a hospital room, we are never separated from His love. After hearing her diagnosis, I wasn’t sure what would happen, but I knew that whatever came to pass we didn’t have to face alone. Life is full of uncertainty.  

It can be a health event, a career change, a new chapter beginning or another passing by, but one thing is for sure: The unknown can feel scary at times, but we can know, sure as the sun, the Son of God walks before us. He is in control and more than worthy of our trust. When we hold His hand and simply follow, our souls are free to wonder, to stand in awe and appreciate the profound and mysterious beauty on the way. 

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Copyright 2025 Cait Winters
Images: Canva