FOR KING + COUNTRY’s Luke Smallbone And Wife Courtney Reveal The Moment Their “Lifeless” Baby Suddenly Began Breathing Again

Courtney Smallbone, wife of FOR KING + COUNTRY singer Luke Smallbone, has shared the extraordinary story of the day she says God brought their infant son back to life.

The terrifying incident occurred in 2017, when Leo was just eight weeks old. Courtney had put him and her two other children down for a nap when she felt an overwhelming prompting to check on him.

"Go check on Leo, and don't believe what you're going to see," she recalled hearing.

What she found was every parent's nightmare. Courtney said Leo appeared blue and gray, with a sunken chest, blood around his face and no apparent signs of life. She carried him outside to Luke, who immediately called emergency services.

Courtney attempted CPR, but Leo did not respond. With medical help still minutes away, she began praying in tongues and laying her hands on her son. Eventually, she removed her hands and whispered a desperate prayer of surrender: "Only You can do this."

Then, according to Courtney, everything changed.

"Literally in that moment, his chest expands, he starts crying," she recalled. "He turns pink. His eyes go from foggy to clear."

Luke, still speaking with the emergency dispatcher, reportedly began shouting that Leo was breathing. Courtney described the transformation as instantaneous-like someone had flipped a switch.

Leo was transported to the hospital, where doctors discovered that he had craniosynostosis, a condition in which the bones of a baby's skull fuse prematurely. Courtney said the diagnosis meant he would need major surgery, but after what she had just witnessed, she felt an unexpected sense of surrender.

The story did not end with Leo's physical recovery. Courtney says her son, now eight, has grown into a remarkably bold young believer who recently delivered a sermon at church. She even likened his spiritual courage to that of John the Baptist.

Most astonishingly, Courtney claims Leo remembers sitting on Jesus' lap and seeing her late grandfather-someone he had never met. According to Leo, his great-grandfather told him that he had to return but would see him again "at the end of the world when the dead are raised."

Courtney also recalled taking Leo backstage at a concert, where he suddenly began sobbing over people who did not know Jesus. While others wondered what was troubling him, she believed her son was experiencing intercession and a profound concern for the lost.

The ordeal permanently changed Courtney's understanding of parenthood. Rather than regarding her children as possessions, she now sees herself as the temporary steward of lives that ultimately belong to God.

"Every day is a gift with him," she said. "Life is a gift. Children are a gift."

Although CBN recently reshared the testimony, its article was originally published on August 20, 2025, and the incident itself happened several years earlier.