In my twenties, I had a rather illustrious career as a model and actress. You might recall my work showcasing the elegant Tiki Room–themed muumuu in a 2006 Disneyland catalog. No autographs at this time, please.
Jokes aside, it wasn’t much, but I felt like I had really MADE it. But then came an out-of-the-blue stroke that replaced my perfectly symmetrical face with a crooked smile, my runway walk with a wheelchair. I buried my burgeoning career and all the dreams that came with it, unable to imagine how that part of my past could ever resurface, no matter how creative God got.
About four years after my stroke, the American Stroke Association @american_heart invited me to participate in a public awareness campaign aiming to educate America on the warning signs of a stroke. Accepting the job was not an easy yes for me. The opportunity felt like another reminder of all that had changed in my life. But I accepted the job and actually had a blast filming the spot.
Being the spokesperson for the American Stroke Association meant my crooked smile was plastered everywhere from Times Square to billboards in our own neighborhood in Atlanta. The campaign would go on to become one of the most effective PSAs in the history of the Ad Council of America. (And since May is #StrokeAwarnessMonth , swipe to see that ad and learn the warning signs of a stroke!)
I got the chance to model again not despite my imperfections but because of them. That’s as accurate a picture of the Kingdom of God as I’ve ever seen. The outward signs of my brokenness helped bring lifesaving education to millions of people about the second-leading cause of death in the world at the time.
Realizing my most successful modeling gig (by far) happened after my stroke—with a paralyzed face, no less!—was a profound lesson in how God can use our deepest wounds to bring healing to the world. Within our most tender hurts, insecurities, vulnerabilities, and shame, we can find something more life-giving than our perfection could ever offer: an opportunity for grace.
When you’re living in the “after” of the tragedy that changes everything, your grip loosens on the tidy platitudes that once satisfied the question of suffering.
“Everything happens for a reason.”
“It’s all part of His plan.”
“You can trust God’s sovereignty.”
I used to say those things too, when the sovereignty of God still felt predictable and tame. But then my brain imploded, and God’s good plan for my life revealed itself to be much less straightforward than I assumed. And if I can be really honest with you, God’s sovereignty stopped feeling trustworthy for a very long time.
That feeling—that loss of trust in God’s “perfect plan”—is not necessarily true. But, goodness, is it real.
When the wounding and uncertainty feel more present than any possibility of redemption, the pat advice to trust in God’s sovereignty feels hollow. Maybe even hurtful.
Slowly over sixteen years, I’m regaining some confidence in the Author of this good/hard story. But my trust is rooted in a different place than it once was. These days, experiencing Jesus’ SOLIDARITY in my suffering means so much more to me than being assured of God’s sovereignty over my suffering.
Without a doubt, there’s a time and place for surrendering to God’s well-laid plans. But first, dear one, we have permission to cling to the co-suffering Christ. He made himself vulnerable to every kind of hurt, loss, disappointment, and death to guarantee that we would never be alone in our pain.
Before Jesus worked all things together for good, He wept for all the things that were not good. Those tears validate the hurts of being human. Those tears are just one of the countless sacrifices he made in pursuit of our healing and wholeness.
Jesus gave us his solidarity within the sovereignty. Now that is a God worth trusting.
Read my full reflection by subscribing to tomorrow’s Hope Note at hopeheals.com/hopenote (link in bio).
NEW BOOK Announcement #TreasuresInTheDark 90 Reflections on Finding Bright Hope Hidden in the Hurting 🙌🏻
Tag your friends, like / share this post, and we’ll mail 20 of you the first copies BEFORE it releases on APRIL 9!
This is the guide I wish I had for my HURTING, for my HEALING, and for my HOPING! And I believe it will be a companion in your darkest days and beyond.
Pre-order at (link in profile) and get some free BEAUTIFUL resources. Let’s go treasure hunting together ❤️🩹
#HopeItForward#HopeWhileYouCope#HopeHeals#SufferStrong
📸 by @kathrynmccrary
HAPPY BIRTHDAY to our dear sis and fearless #MendCoffeeAndGoods project manager Mary Austin @mawhall89 , who recently got the absolute best present in her new baby ROB Jay Hall!!
#HopeHeals ministry, @HopeHeals.Camp , and @MendCoffee (not to mention us!) have been forever changed by Mary’s excellence, care and compassion.
We celebrate you and your growing family in this new beautiful new season 🤍
***This community has grieved with and encouraged Mary and Andrew after the loss of their first baby last year, so we’re grateful to share this hope-filled news!
#HopeWhileYouCope#HopeHealsFamily#DontWaitToCelebrate
I cried myself to sleep for a year after my stroke. The same questions kept me awake and in total anguish night after night.
Did God make a mistake? Does he even exist? If God is real, how could I ever call him good?
I was caught between life and death and, at that point, my survival felt more like a miscalculation than a miracle.
I couldn’t walk or talk. I couldn’t eat or see clearly. I couldn’t stand up on my own or even hold my baby. The facts of my life could have justified a profound hopelessness. No one would’ve blamed me for opting out of belief in an engaged and empathetic God.
But after a while I realized that was not the story I wanted to corroborate. I was interested in telling the deeper story. The truest story.
The facts of my life didn’t change all that drastically. But when I laid them out with a refreshed perspective, those very same facts began to make a case for complex grace. For a God big enough to hold every sorrow within his goodness. For gratitude born from the deepest loss.
I replaced those old late-night questions with new ones: Can I only believe in God and his goodness when I get what I want? Or does God prove himself to be the most real when I get what I never knew I needed squarely within the hurts and hardships.
Friend, I’ll never be able to say I’m grateful for the tears we’ve shed or the pain we’ve felt. But, goodness, am I grateful for the invitation into radical faith that the pain is extending to you and to me. It’s asking us to separate our peace from our outcomes. To find our value outside of our abilities. To believe there is a God working out miracles where we can only see mistakes. To see find evidence of the truest story whenever we can find it.
Read my full reflection by subscribing to tomorrow’s Hope Note at hopeheals.com/hopenote (link in bio).
We cannot control a lot in this life.
Things happen, but what we DO have complete control over is how we respond. We get to narrate our story, rather than letting the tragedy and hardship have the final say. This does not mean it’s easy, or intuitive, but it is still something that we can actively choose to do everyday. It’s a mindset we have to cultivate. We get to look at the same image, and decide which part we’re going to focus on.
This truth became very real for Katherine Wolf when she suffered a catastrophic stroke out of nowhere in 2008. She was just 26-years-old, working as a model in Hollywood, and was married with a newborn.
And her life completely changed in an instant. She now spends most of her time in a wheelchair, half her face is paralyzed, one of her hands does not work well, she lost hearing in one ear and has a whole host of neurological issues.
But it was not just Katherine who went through this, it was also her husband Jay, who became her full-time caretaker overnight.
In their bestselling memoir Hope Heals, Katherine reflected, “he flossed my teeth, put on my lipstick, fed me all my “food” and medications through a tube, lifted me on and off every machine at the gym, brushed and blow-dried my hair, picked out my outfits every morning and dressed me.. put on my deodorant, took me to the bathroom every single time I had to go, and even shaved my armpits… He showed me that true love means he did not want anything from me; he just loved me freely, just as I was. His true love was my hand to hold through my darkest valley.”
Few testimonies show us the essence what it means to be a husband and father quite like this one. Especially through thick and thin.
Here we discover that it was in Katherine’s greatest tragedy, that she got to experience the greatest acts of love. After fifteen years of grieving, preserving and hoping, it is Katherine’s active choice to meditate on everything she has gained through this experience, rather than what she has lost.
Link in bio to watch the full podcast episode on YouTube, Spotify or Apple Podcasts. If you want us to DM you the episode, comment HOPE below.
How do you respond when someone who is hurting? In the awkwardness, many of us don’t know what to say, so we mistakenly resort to platitudes to try to resolve the situation. But this doesn’t actually help the other person.
What they really need is for someone to sit with them, to cry with them, and to not try to make the situation better. To see someone really enter into the pain with them, and share that burden together.
In episode 13 of the Mighty Pursuit Podcast, we explore this theme deeper with Katherine Wolf. Back in 2008, Katherine was working as a model in Hollywood.
In her own words, “as a five-foot-ten blonde with big blue eyes, I didn’t go unnoticed in many rooms.” But one afternoon, she suffered a catastrophic stroke, caused by a congenital brain defect she never knew she had. After a sixteen-hour brain surgery, forty days in the ICU, a year in neuro rehab, and eleven operations, she miraculously survived and continues her recovery to this day.
Despite all the challenges she has faced, Katherine is one of the leading advocates for hope. Katherine has spoken to crowds as large as 65,000 people and has nearly 250,000 followers on Instagram. Since its release, Hope Heals, the memoir she wrote with her husband Jay, has sold over 100,000 copies.
Link in bio to watch the full episode on YouTube, Spotify or Apple Podcasts!
I can’t think of a better reason to get a little dressed up on a gorgeous Summer night for a final @breathofhopecff (and after almost 20 years of marriage, I must say, we’re still pretty cute together! 🤍)
We celebrate and honor our dear friends (Will and @ann_shearer ) and their incredible legacy of advocating for the #cysticfibrosis community, as well as the village of support that has made this cause their own over so many years now.
Their tireless work has literally helped the @cf_foundation fund transformational treatments that are creating a new story for CF patients everywhere.
If disability or pain or CF or just being human has taught us anything…it’s that we can’t do this life alone, nor were we ever meant to. ❤️🩹❤️🩹❤️🩹
#HopeWhileYouCope#HopeHeals#SufferStrong#TreasuresInTheDark
Click the link in our bio to watch Episode 13 of the Mighty Pursuit Podcast with Katherine Wolf, a world-renowned speaker and author. Back in 2008, Katherine was working as a model in Hollywood.
In her own words, “as a five-foot-ten blonde with big blue eyes, I didn’t go unnoticed in many rooms.” But one afternoon, she suffered a catastrophic stroke that left half of her face permanently paralyzed.
Despite all the challenges she has faced, Katherine is one of the leading advocates for hope. Katherine has spoken to crowds as large as 65,000 people and has nearly 250,000 followers on Instagram. Since its release, Hope Heals, the memoir she wrote with her husband Jay, has sold over 100,000 copies.
Her story is powerful for many reasons, one of which is how it speaks into the conversation around beauty standards and body image. Our culture is obsessed with beauty. Plastic surgery rates are skyrocketing, and most of the population (men and women) experience some dissatisfaction with their bodies.
The struggle with our appearance is one of things Katherine calls “invisible wheelchairs”, which leave us feeling handicapped. Katherine has largely broken free from this cycle, and has much to teach us about how to move forward.
Link in bio to watch on YouTube, Spotify or Apple Podcasts.
Congratulations, friends. We've made it through "May-pocalypse." Or perhaps "May-maggedon" better describes the last month of your life.
I've recently heard both phrases used to describe the blurry weeks when spring ends and summer begins. Nothing has EVER felt so accurate. At least I can say that this mama tried.
I find myself overwhelmed right now. A few weeks ago my team and I opened a years-in-the-making coffee shop and launched a new book into the world...on the same day.
I've fit cross-country speaking engagements between the cracks of school plays and piano recitals and coffee dates with hurting friends. The end-of-school activity frenzy has officially reached a fever pitch, and it's not harmonizing all that well with Hope Heals Camp prep.
When I find myself in full-blown overwhelm, I try to remember this: 16 years ago as I lay in an ICU bed, I would have given absolutely anything to be overwhelmed by work opportunities and busy kids and ministry growth. There was a time when I could not have dreamed life would be just this good and just this FULL again.
When I reframed my perspective, overwhelm began to feel more like abundance.
Dear one, perhaps you’re leaving behind a season of stress or entering into some fresh chaos. You may be smack in the middle of the certifiably worst days of your life. Your "May-maggedon" might stick around into June and then July...and into December. Wherever you are, I promise you can choose a new perspective on your present circumstances.
Maybe you need to be reminded of just how far you’ve come. Or maybe you need some borrowed hope that better days are ahead, days when you’re overwhelmed by plans and possibilities rather than pain.
Let’s agree to give ourselves grace for our limited capacity and blessed humanity and the all-too-real stress that comes with this whole deal. But let’s also agree to live in a posture of perspective so we can tell the truest story about our good/hard lives.
#OverwhelmAsAbundance#TooBlessedToBeBitter#TellTheTruestStory
