Waves of Faith ^Featured

As children of the Great Depression, Beverly Nelson and Chester Tretiak learn early what it means to go without. Their families, stripped of livelihoods, struggle through years of meager meals and threadbare clothes. When both families relocate to Santa Rosa, California, the two children find in each other a friendship that blossoms amid shared hardship.

By high school, as America slowly recovers, their bond deepens into something more. Beverly dreams of marriage, only to have Chester announce his enlistment in the Navy. Then comes that December morning in 1941—Pearl Harbor in flames, Chester’s ship caught in the attack. Though he survives, the war now claims him indefinitely. But the lean years of the Depression had already toughened their spirits. They’d learned courage, not as an ideal, but as a necessity. They met the war with practiced grit.

Determined to fight in her own way, Beverly takes on a welding job at Mare Island Shipyard—work she initially hides from Chester in her letters. When a welding rod sears her skin, leaving a permanent scar, she worries he’ll find her changed, unlovable. Across the Pacific, Chester, too, carries a new scar, a typhoon’s parting blow. When the catastrophic war finally ends and Chester returns home, they must draw on their faith and reveal their scars—seen and unseen—if their love is to survive.