Invisible Wheelchairs | Katherine Wolf

Guys, I think we all have invisible wheelchairs. I've got one on the outside here that everybody sees, but I think every single one of us has an invisible wheelchair. Something or many things inside of us that are decidedly not okay. Stuff that is hard. Stuff that we're dealing with. We're walking around with invisible wheelchairs and no one would even know what all we're walking through. We have to feel with each other such a deep loyalty in this life that we've all been through a lot and are going through a lot of hard things, even though they may look very different. Good morning. So the last series was entitled, Be a Man, Be a Woman. Here we go. Hi. I'm so glad that y'all are here and that I'm here. Who was here last night for the, well, not here, but who was at the women's event last night? A few of you. Okay. Well, for those who weren't, which is most of you, sorry, you may have thought your speaker this morning would be a woman who was jumping around the stage in high heels and doing awesome. And there's a lady in a wheelchair on the stage. So you might be a little confused, like, wait, this doesn't look like healing. Isn't that what we're talking about, Jesus, healing, joy of the Lord? This looks like it could be kind of sad. Maybe it's going to be a big bummer kind of morning. Well, it's not. It's not going to be a bummer at all. In fact, I think you're probably going to leave kind of encouraged in your faith, in your walk with Jesus.

And I would say, I mean, I don't know, but rather than being a big bummer, which I don't think I'm going to be, I actually hope I don't do the opposite, which is just like inspire you with my story of overcoming. Because like inspiration may be a very momentary thing in your life. Like you see a speaker on stage and you feel inspired by their story. But when your life takes a hard turn and there is a trial, I think we can disassociate from the inspiration. But instead, how powerful if we can tune in and rather apply what we see in the inspiration. Do you follow? Like what if instead of seeing me as inspirational story, you said, I'm going to apply these specifics to my life. I long to move from being mere inspiration, but rather to application to your story and your specifics, because I'm not that special, let's be real. I have a really cool story, yes. But what the Lord has given me to steward is something that I feel like can translate to everyone's story. Are any of your lives perfect? Anybody? No pain, no problems, no issues? And yet, did any of you have a massive brainstem stroke where you nearly died, become severely disabled afterwards? No hands with either. So I think there's something there. Guys, I think we all have invisible wheelchairs. I've got one on the outside here that everybody sees. But I think every single one of us has an invisible wheelchair. There are many things inside of us that are decidedly not okay. Stuff that is hard, stuff that we're dealing with, haunting memories, shame, just horrible stuff that's happened, wounds, stuff we've done, stuff that's been done to us. We are all not okay.

I know I'm not. And I've got this one on the outside that shows the world that. So in some ways, it's like I get a pass. No one goes into the grocery store and thinks everything is okay with me. They know there's something going on here. But for most of us, we don't get that pass. We're walking around with invisible wheelchairs and no one would even know what all we're walking through. So I think we owe each other such a deep loyalty in this life that we've all been through a lot and are going through a lot of. hard things, even though they may look very different. I'm going to tell you just a quick moment of my story and then jump into some other stuff. But before I do, let me say thank you. Thank you to all of you guys for letting me share with you up here. You know, I think I am continually being healed by the telling and retelling of my story. In fact, neuroscience shows that, that when we tell our story to empathetic listeners, it changes how we feel about our story. It's so biblical, it's so right, it's so important that as we declare the goodness of God and what he's done, we are reiterating to our head and our heart God's faithfulness time and time again, the goodness of God in the land of the living. So thank you, thank you for letting me do that. In a nutshell, I got married in Athens, Georgia. I'm a Georgia girl. In 2004, I married my college sweetheart.

We moved to California from Georgia, had an adventure. My husband was in Pepperdine Law School. I quickly had a baby at age 25. And when that sweet baby was six months old, I had a massive brainstem stroke out of absolutely nowhere. It was a birth defect that ruptured. Never knew I had, it was typically able-bodied with no health problems, no medical history, no family history, nothing prior. And out of nowhere, had this AVM that blew up my life. I spent 16 hours in microbrain surgery and did live. And from there, spent another year relearning to walk and spent the next three years relearning to eat again, to speak again, and in a cycle of surgeries. I've had 13 micro surgeries since the stroke and ongoing pretty big, terrible issues. And it's been honestly pretty rough. We have a picture of my first Mother's Day with my sweet baby who was then eight months old. And that picture's hard to look at because I don't even remember that shot of my sweet little baby on my first Mother's Day. It was so sad, so, so sad. And there's been a lot of really bad suffering. I know you probably think I'm like 28 now, but I'm 43. And in these last 17 years since the stroke, there has been a lot of really hard stuff, a lot of hard stuff. There's also been a lot of really good stuff. And I'll get to hear a little about that.

But there has been pretty tremendous collateral damage, I like to say, but there's also been tremendous collateral blessing. There's been collateral gifts in the deep darkness. There's been a lot of profound treasure, I dare say, in the darkness. And I believe that's exactly what the Lord has for us. One of the biggest treasures has been that I had the opportunity to become biologically pregnant with a second child. And John Nestor Wolf was born seven and a half years after the stroke. And it was supposed to be medically impossible to have more children. And that's just one of the amazing things the Lord has done post-stroke. But it's been rough. You may know the beautiful truth of Isaiah 45.3 that he gives hidden treasure in the darkness, riches stored in secret places. And maybe I've gotten a glimpse of that, some treasure in the deep darkness. And it's given me courage. I think in the darkness, in all of our stories, we play the what-if game. Do you know that game, the what-if game? Where we say, what if I would've done this? What if I would've done that? What if this would've happened? What if that would've happened?

What if, what if, what if, what if? And we just go around and around on that loop, right? What if? And I don't know about you, but I want off of this loop. I probably have a pinnacle what-if story. And it's that when I was 19 years old, I was misdiagnosed with dizziness and put on vertical medication. And had the doctor ordered an MRI, he would have seen I had a mass growing in my brainstem. However, what that would have done, and this is important, don't miss this. is that would have created a new loop. As if I would have known, would I have had elective brain surgery? Would I have got married? Would I have had children? Would I have done this and that and this and that? And so it's a whole new loop. Loops create loops of the what if game. And I don't know about you, but I want off the loops. I don't want to live in the what ifs, the hypotheticals of life, because they're not real. They're not what is actually in the story. So what I am screaming out is to move from the what if to the what is. What is actually in the story and how we can stare at what is and learn to radically accept it.

To recognize as Christ followers that this is exactly what God has for me. This is it. This is my actual real life. And I want to somehow radically accept the what is right in front of my nose. Not wanting this life or that life or what if I would have done that or I really want her story. No, that's not real. This is it. This is what God has given me to champion and steward with my life. And I'm going to stare at it long enough till I love it. And that's a powerful thought in our world. What if you choose to love the story that God is writing through your life? I think it can possibly change everything. I write a book called Treasures in the Dark, the Isaiah passage. And I ask in this book a question that I want to ask God. I'm standing up to make a memory because you think differently when the speaker's standing. So here I go. Guys, if it's true for me, could it be true for you too? I am no saint. I am no superhero. I'm not even that special. I just have a cool story.

But if it's true for me, could it be true for you and your story? Like I said, I long to move people from inspiration to application. I long to take them from, I'm inspiring you to live a good, hard story of Jesus to I want to tell you how to apply the stuff to your life, to apply some of these deep truths that I feel like in some of the deep darkness, the Lord has really given to me, allowed me to put in my toolkit, in my backpack, to journey through life because I don't know about y'all, but I've got ongoing stuff that's not cool. It's not just I have a stroke. So one and done, checked the suffering off the list and now everything else is entirely perfect and my marriage, my family of origin, my finances, all of it is just awesome. I just had this one bad thing. No, that's not how life is, is it? We have ongoing hard things, hard things, hard things, hard things keep happening. And can we apply the good stuff for the hard things that keep coming at us while we're in this world? As you might know, this is not a safe place. John 16, 33 is true, I believe, that in this world we will have trouble, but we can take heart because he has overcome the world. And if we believe that, amen, can we live like it?

Can we live like, yeah, I want to live into the reality that I can in fact take heart because he has overcome the world. So here's just a few quick treasure takeaways, I call them. Number one, when I was first in the hospital and had the massive stroke, I could not speak at all. And eventually the speech pathologist gave me a voice diction device called a letter board, a communication device. So as you can see, my baby thought it was a really fun toy. And I would type on the letter board letters and my family would spell the word. So I would type, I'm the same on the inside. I'm the same on the inside over and over because I wanted my family and friends to know I'm the same, my personality, my faith, my memories are all intact. And I get it, of course, I should have said that. Yes, that was right. However, I am thinking about it today, 17 years later, would never use that phrase. I'm the same on the inside because I'm not, I'm not. Suffering has done deep things. to me. I'm not the same girl I was when I had a stroke at 26. I believe that suffering forms new people, but Jesus in our suffering forms a new creation, and that can be a glorious creation if we have eyes to see it. You know, today I live my life in a wheelchair. My sweet husband pushes me around in that thing, this thing, every day. I can't drive a car. I just have a whole plethora of just health challenges, and obviously my face is sterilized. My hand doesn't work. I am living a fully disabled lifestyle, and I was completely typically able-bodied before a massive stroke, and it's been crazy. I largely did not recognize the

population of people living with disabilities until I became one. It's wild. I now get this in my days, championing, stewarding. This story is a population of people who are largely invisible in this world. We have an incredible family camp for families where someone just like me has a disability, and the whole family comes to camp for free. It is glorious. You should all volunteer. We actually have families in this church who come and volunteer and serve at Hope Hills Camp in the summer. You need to come on, too. We're from South Dakota down to Alabama. It's glorious, and I get to celebrate with them. For instance, my friend Katie here. Katie is a camper in our camp who fell off of a golf cart, had TBI, has cognitive issues, and lives her life in a wheelchair, and her population has my whole heart because the aging population of kids getting out of school and not entering the workforce, not launching, not marrying, not going into the real world is very high. So my husband and I created a coffee shop to fight people with disabilities to work called Men, Coffee, and Goods, where we get to champion people with disabilities in the interability work space and get to celebrate the goodness of God and the intrinsic value of a human being no matter what their body can do. So, guys, I get to be like the poster child for these populations and loving on them, and this coffee shop, this camp, this whole ministry of writing and speaking has all come as a direct result of the worst thing that ever happened to me. I hope you have chills because that's glorious. Can the worst things ever happen to us give us some of the greatest gifts of our lives? I think you could make a case that's gospel, that's Jesus, that what looks like the worst can be the most beautiful, pretty powerful thought. I think what's happened to me is Romans 12.2. You may know the glorious verse that, do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. I think that's what's happened, is I couldn't conform to the pattern of this world anymore after the stroke and becoming disabled. Nope, couldn't conform. So, I began to transform my mind, and it's just kind of gone. So, now I'm living more into the entirely and perfectly into the upside down kingdom of God because I don't fit here. But maybe that's not a bad thing. Maybe that's exactly where the Lord has me, and that's pretty powerful. You know, I asked my wonderful Christian counselor a couple years ago, I'm like, the anniversary of the stroke no longer stings the way it used to. Like, what's happening? Am I becoming a stoic? Am I becoming like psychopath? Why do I not dread April 21st like I used to?

I used to hate it. I hated April 21st. And now it's like kind of neutral. And she said, could it be that you love who you've become? And I was like, whoa. She said, it's really hard to hate the anniversary day when you see what the anniversary has given you. So, you can love who you've become on the other side of your deep pain. So, the first treasure takeaway for all of you is my suffering can feel a little more bearable when I love who I've become because of it. Treasure takeaway number two. Starting when I was 18 in college, I was doing something called commercial print modeling. that you've never heard of, it's not modeling, I'm just really tall and had a commercial face back in the day. So I began doing this like Target ads and Disney catalogs and like this little career, it's really funny, commercial brand modeling. And obviously when I had the stroke, I knew that was no longer part of my life. It was never my colleagues, thankfully, so it didn't totally matter. But I knew I'm in a wheelchair, my face is paralyzed, that line of work is decidedly over and yet I started speaking at American Stroke Association luncheons and one thing led to another and the head of marketing for the American Stroke Association called and asked if I would become the F in the fast campaign using my face to educate people about having a stroke. So this puffy is plastered all over America and right here in South Dakota on billboards, it's on the billboard in Times Square, it's given in doctor's offices, this thing is absolutely everywhere. So you're getting the irony, I imagine, like my very, very most successful modeling gig ever came after I had a massive stroke and my face is paralyzed. Is that not insane? Like what truly the upside down kingdom of God. I think of the verse Isaiah 43, 19, see, I am doing something new. Now it springs up. Do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the wilderness and streams through the wasteland. Now here's where it gets really nuts.

Right here, I spoke at this church, some of you are probably here, 2018, Emory Church, South Dakota. A lady comes up to me after the service, right here, I'm not kidding, and says, you're not going to believe this, but I saw a billboard with your face on it weeks ago. So then a couple of weeks after that, my face was drooping and I knew to go to the hospital and I was having a stroke. So I credit you with saving my life from having this massive stroke. And I'm like, I'm sorry, what? Like is this real? And you're probably thinking that. Is this real? Well, since you're looking at the proof, it's real. But I wouldn't believe it either because it's too nuts. But I promise, this lady says I saved her life. And now subsequently, two other women, other speaking events have said the very same thing. So as I sit back and think about this, like unbelievable craziness, I reconciled this. God can use my very deepest wounds, deepest wounds, to bring healing to the world. That's powerful. I've felt a lot of shame and sadness about my paralyzed face. It may not be a huge deal to you, it may be highly distracting, and I'm very sorry. But it's completely paralyzed, this whole side does not move. And you can imagine, pretty much everywhere I go, all day long, everybody sees this. That is paralyzed. And it's been sad. I've been filled with shame. But God can use my deepest wounds to bring healing to the world. What a profound gift. What a profound gift of the darkness. I am, sorry, treasure takeaway number three. In 2020, the horrific year that was 2020, I took a bad fall and tore my ACL, MCL, and

meniscus, the holy trinity of tears. And when I did, I was bedridden, and my husband ordered a bedside toilet. And when the toilet came off Amazon, it was an 8,000 IKEA pieces as they are. And my husband enlisted my two sons, 13 and 5 at the time, to put the bedside toilet together. And it was really hard. They had to redo it several times, and I just knew, for sure, this is the moment that I am ruining their lives. Like, after all we've been through, this is putting them over the edge. The bedside toilet is the one, because, like, they shouldn't have to put together mom's bedside toilet. This is such a nightmare. This is so sad. This is so horrible. But what I had forgotten, like, a bedside toilet is, like, the biggest, greatest Lego play ever. So it was really, like, fun, and it was hard, and then 8,000 pieces, and they had to redo it multiple times, and that's not right. Do it again. Figure it out. do it this way. So they presented me with a bedside toilet like it was the greatest gift they could have ever given to their mama, and it's a toilet. And it was weird and special and growing, character growing for all of us. I think of the truth of James 1-4, let perseverance run its course so that we may be mature and complete, not lacking anything. And here's the truth. I think we all want our kids to grow up and mature, right? But we don't want them to have to persevere. We don't want them to ever have to do anything hard to get there. Now, that's like a funny story, a bedside toilet, ACL, blah, blah, blah. However, let me speak to the person in the room for a minute who's like, yeah, Catherine, it's a lot deeper than that. There's a lot of pain associated with the fact that my children are having to help take care of me, or my children are coping with the invisible wheelchairs in my story, or my spouse or my family or my friends or my family of

origin are wrecked because of having me exist. I definitely have been there. I wondered in the early days if I should not have died, if I shouldn't just be in heaven and this would all be over, and my husband could remarry, and my baby could have a normal mommy, because like I don't fit in this world anymore. And what I reconciled is that if I was supposed to die, I would have died. But I did not die. I am here. I am in this story. So God wants me as the mother of my children. God wants me as the wife to my husband. God wants me in my family. God wants me on this earth right now, because I have a pulse. I believe if you have a pulse, you have a purpose, that God is saying you are supposed to be on this earth right here, right now, taking up space. In fact, you are worthy of taking up both time and space, because God said so, or else you wouldn't be here. Therefore, the people in our lives helping take care of us are supposed to be there. God said that, not me, and it's so. So the treasure take away for all of you is this. I can view my suffering, I can see my suffering as a curse on the people I love, or as an inheritance of breathtaking value. Today, we are a family of four carrying on. We live in Atlanta, Georgia, and my husband Jay and I are raising our two boys, who are now 18 and 10, and that was our Christmas card picture last year. And for a moment, that picture could make me really sad. For a moment, like sending out that Christmas card, that just sinks. There's a wheelchair in the story. I wanted a whole bunch of kids, and only have two. And yeah, yuck. My face is paralyzed. I don't want to look at that. And I look for another minute at that picture. I wake up to the reality that that is a glorious photograph. That six-month-old baby is now 18 and headed off to college. That that 10-year-old wasn't even born when I had the stroke, and he's awesome. Not perfect, awesome. That husband has stayed for 21 years of marriage. That girl in the middle, she is a profound miracle of God. I should be dead, and I'm in my Christmas card with my kids and my husband. And I just can't help but think about anything I'm telling you in these moments. Take this home. That we get to decide how we feel about the picture we see of our lives. We get to look at our story and see, one, the story of sadness and what didn't happen and unmet expectations and all the problems. Or we get to see God showed up here and has made something incredibly beautiful with this mess. So I am imploring you, look at the right picture. See through the right lens. right lens of your story.

I want to close with the end of Isaiah 45, which says, so that you may know the God of Israel, the God who summons us by name. And I see so clearly that through our suffering, whatever it looks like, all different forms, each kind, unique to you, God is saying, I see you and I have never left you and I will never leave you. And if you let me, I will turn your complete misery, your horrible stuff into a ministry, into something that you get to steward every day for the rest of your journey. I don't know about you, but my pain is too precious to waste. This has cost too much to just go on with life. No, no, no. I want to spend my life stewarding what God has done. And I pray that for each of you, that you will spend your life using it as ministry, stewarding, championing all the hard things to bring glory to him. Let me pray for you. Father, I thank you for every person in this room. Lord, I praise you for who you are, how you show up for us, how you move, Lord, how you've never left us, never abandoned us and are always making things new in your time, how you are always writing a new story. Lord, we believe that suffering

is never the ending of the story, but the beginning of something new and something beautiful that you are doing, Jesus. I pray while we pray at our camp and sing over our campers that you were meant to be here. And I'm saying that to you people. Lord knows you were meant to be here. And I mean, in the building right now. And I mean, on this earth right now, taking up space because God says, thank you, Lord. Thank you for writing the best stories that bring glory to your name. We love you, Jesus, amen. Amen and amen. God bless you, amazing South Dakotans, South Dakotians. I'm so grateful to get to be here and encourage y'all in the truth that life is so, so good. Don't be advised to see it. Let me leave you with this. I love my life. I love this story. And I pray that for you. Sorry, I'm always crying. I pray you can love the story that God is writing through your life. Whatever is to come, let's be strong together. We can do this life because we know what's to come. God bless y'all. Oh, I'm always crying.

I'm so proud, glory to God, God bless y'all, God bless y'all. To see all new messages as they drop. Also feel free to click here and check out more of our videos. Thanks so much for watching.