WHOA That's Good Podcast - You Have a Stunning Capacity to Do Hard Things! | Sadie Robertson Huff & Katherine Wolf

Episode Date: June 5, 2024

It's Katherine Wolf's first time on the podcast and Sadie can't wait to introduce you to her (if you didn't know about her already!). After a life-altering stroke at the age of 26, why does Katherine call herself "a big fan of the good, hard life?" Katherine found a life-transforming hope in Jesus when she almost died and she wants to share it with everyone because we all are going through hard things! As Katherine says, no one can tell YOU how to feel about your own story — that's something you get to decide and she almost had to die to truly find this life-altering hope. Sadie and Katherine talk about the importance of showing up for friends and family in especially hard circumstances and why not knowing what to say is okay! After this conversation, we know you're going to feel lighter and more hopeful about what's currently going on in your life. We can do this hard life because we are NOT alone — we have Jesus and we have each other! To find out more about Hope Heals Camp visit: https://hopehealscamp.com/ and Katherine's book "Treasures in the Dark" is out now!  https://preborn.com/sadie — Visit the website or dial #250 and use keyword BABY to donate now. https://www.auraframes.com/whoa — Get $30 off Aura’s best-selling frames when you use code WHOA at checkout! https://www.trymiracle.com/whoa — Get 40% off + 3 FREE towels with code WHOA at checkout! - Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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This person needs really no introduction, but I will give her an introduction because I want to because I love her so much and I want to honor her for who she is. We actually have Catherine Wolf coming on the podcast today, author of Hope Heals, author of a new book. Y'all check this out, Treasures in the Dark, and this is such an incredible resource. If you do not go buy this book right now, then you crazy and you missed it,

because this is gonna bless your life. Katherine does so many amazing things, but who she is is just an amazing woman that I can't wait to learn from more on this podcast. So Katherine, welcome to the Well That's Good podcast. Oh, Sadie, thank you so much. I am so thankful to be here. You are a true joy in a gym, and I'm grateful.

I said this before, but I'm grateful that I've gotten to learn from you up close, like literally having lunch with you and being, you know, a passion with you and the things, but I also learn so much from you from afar that you probably don't realize because I don't tell you every time I listen to your stuff or read your book or do whatever.

So you're amazing. Oh gosh. Truly. You're so sweet. Thank you. And likewise, things like passion, I'm learning from you. So it's a cycle. It's a fest of continued learning from you. So it's it's a cycle. It's a

Fest of Continued learning from each other. There's like a verse in Romans and I'm probably gonna botch it But I love it because it basically says like as I am encouraging you I'm being encouraged by you and I love that so much and that is definitely how my friendship is with you So I can't wait to dive in. And first of all, I can't believe you haven't been on this podcast. What the world. That just feels crazy. But part of me is like excited for all the listeners because a lot of people do know your story and everything.

But I'm like now we get just a fresh like full story, all the fun chats, all about the book, everything. So I hate that you haven't been on it until this point, but because of that, we have so much to talk about. This is the perfect time, yes. It's the perfect time. Wonderful. Well, I'll start with the question that I ask everyone who comes on the podcast for the first time. And I hope I don't hit you where you haven't expected.

I hope someone prepped you for this. But I always ask everyone the question, what is the best piece of advice that you have ever been given, Catherine Wolf? Oh, good. No one prepped me for it, but I'm here for it. I love that question. The best piece of advice, you know,

when I moved to Los Angeles before my stroke, when I was newly married and it was a crazy time in my life. A sweet man told me that when people move to Los Angeles, many times they use it as a means to an end to further their career, to do something cool, you know, in their life. And instead, make this your home. Really live here, plant deep roots. Don't waste this time. And we didn't. As you would know, because you know my story, we had incredibly deep, real friendships and so much community that when I had a massive stroke out of nowhere, several years later, there was several hundred people in the waiting room holding vigil, praying for me when they

were operating on the life-saving brain surgery. So I've never articulated that before that way, Sadie, you just brought that out of me. But how beautiful to hear that sweet man's advice to go deep, to not wait. Just not wait till you start your life when you have a kid or when you're older, but jump in now, plug in deep to community because you'll need it so badly.

So that was that. That is so, I love asking that question because it does bring something so special out of everyone because typically the best piece of advice you've ever been given was at a time that you really needed it and then it was pivotal for what was gonna happen next. And so to hear that that's what he told you then

and you were able to go so deep with people and community. And that is something that I think so many people long for community and they want those deep roots but they don't do the intentional steps that it takes to get that. And actually I remember sitting with someone one time and they had moved a couple of times and they were living here and then they were leaving and I remember really asking her like why are

you leaving you know you haven't been here very long and she said we just want to be somewhere where we can have roots and I remember having this conversation with her you don't just stumble upon roots you know you grow roots and so you're never gonna move to a place where there's just roots waiting for you. No, like you get to a place and then you plant the seeds and you watch the roots grow over time as you water and nurture. And I do think that so many people, again, you want the roots, you want the depth, you want the community, but you got to do the steps that it takes to get that. And that's a- Right, but you don't want the work that's involved. Yeah, the work.

Then showing up. Yeah. And listening well, and learning, and finding the people without the other people, and making them your people. And nobody wants to talk about that or do that. It's so true. They just want instant community, and that doesn't exist.

That is so true. So good. Okay, so you've hinted at your story a little bit of having a stroke and a major brain operation. So can you tell the listeners just your story of moving to LA and what happened next? Sure. Born and raised in Athens, Georgia. Went to college in Birmingham, Alabama at Samford. Married my college sweetheart. And we went on an adventure to California when we were young and crazy. And we're living a dream.

I had a baby along the way. I was at the time doing something called commercial print modeling, which isn't like modeling. It's not like some weird high fashion, super thin, bizarre. No, no, no. This was like Target ads and Disney catalogs. And I mean, I was paying the bills. It wasn't my calling, but we were having fun. Um, new baby in tow and he is six months old.

Went out of nowhere. Absolutely nowhere. No medical history, no family history, no warning of any kind. I had a massive brainstem stroke and very nearly died from a birth defect called an AVM, which is like a really, really bad brain aneurysm that ruptures in your brainstem. And mine actually had four aneurysms on top of it and was the largest the doctors had ever seen. And all the doctors on call were going to let me die

in the waiting room. And a brave surgeon decided to try because he saw that baby and thought I got to give this mother a chance and took me into surgery and 16 hours later I came out alive and he knew very well that he had had to alter my life dramatically that I Would now be someone if I were to live post-surgery major deficits. And my husband always says that the doctor came out of the waiting room and said, she's alive and we don't know what it will look like.

She may be vegetative. She may never walk. We don't know, but she's alive. And he always says the smallest sign of life was the beginning of his hope. And I became after the stroke, severely, severely disabled. I could not eat or speak or walk and was taken down to being almost like a baby. I had to relearn everything. And today, 16 years later, I'm still very impaired. I use a wheelchair, as you can see, but I guess your listeners can't. My face is paralyzed and I can't drive a car.

My eyes don't track and blah, blah, blah. I have many ongoing health problems and even some neurological issues that they finally linked up to a condition I have that caused all of this. And so, yeah, it's been rough. I've taken some bad falls, broken several bones. It's been, it's been really difficult, 16 years. And it's also been an amazing 16 years. I've gone on to have a second biological child who's now eight years old,

named after the neurosurgeon who saved my life. Really cool. And I founded with my husband a camp for families with disabilities, which is amazing. It's called Hope Hills Camp. So good. All your listeners should come volunteer. It's phenomenal. I've written some books, I speak a lot. And most recently, my husband and I, our ministry actually opened a brick and mortar manifestation of that same ethos of camp. It's a coffee shop with really fabulous coffee, I must say, in Buckhead in Atlanta where we

live. So you got to come visit. When I think back on the pregnancies that I had, I think about all the women that were surrounding me during that time giving me advice for what I was about to step into. And I will always be so thankful for my support network during each of my pregnancies. But for some mothers who find themselves in an unplanned situation and might feel like they have nowhere to turn, I want to tell you about my partners at PreBORN because they stand up and give these moms

the support that they need. Preborn provides free ultrasounds for mothers with unplanned pregnancies so that they can meet their babies for the very first time. I remember how powerful those moments were for me. I love ultrasounds so much. I remember just the first time you hear your baby's heartbeat, it is just the most incredible thing

in the world and actually once a mother hears her baby's heart beating, she's actually twice as likely to choose life, which is such a miracle. She's getting to hear that miracle inside of her. So pre-born doesn't get any help from government funding, so their amazing work is totally dependent on people like us and the pro-life community

coming around them. More than 280,000 babies have had their mother choose their life thanks to pre-born, but they don't stop at just life-saving ultrasounds. This might be my favorite part about what pre-born does. They also provide love, support, and free counseling for up to two years, which is so amazing. They truly do believe in moms and want to help moms thrive with their child. So one ultrasound is just $28, so a gift of $140 can save the lives of five babies. Five save lives can truly change the entire world. I firmly believe that you know you never

know what little life is going to be born into the world that's going to change the world themselves by just being the light in it. And so I have been just so excited for this partnership with Preborn. I love their mission. I love how not only are they helping the mom as she's pregnant, but they're helping her after she has the baby because I experienced that postpartum anxiety and it was such a hard thing and that's when I really needed people around me. And so to know that they're providing that

for other moms and the counseling they're gonna go through, if you're gonna give to anything, I highly encourage you to give to Preborn. They're gonna come around mamas and help them do the best job that they can do. So together you and I can help mothers choose life. Please join us in the fight. All gifts are tax deductible. To donate dial pound 250 on your cell and use the keyword baby or go to preborn.com slash Sadie. That's preborn.com slash Sadie. Wow. I want to come visit truly so badly because I've sent people, friends to your camp. We've talked about that who just so majorly impacted and hearing the stories from them. I was like, Christian, we have to go. We have to go.

Oh my gosh, you must. And I've gotten to taste your coffee and it's so, so good because y'all sent some beans. And so really and truly like I have, we could sit here all day and talk and it would be a dream, but I know we don't have that much time, but I'm saying this to the listeners right now, because we're about to talk for the next, you know, 30, 40 minutes. But let me just tell you, when you get to know Catherine Wolf, you have the best deep dive of your life after this.

You have books to read that are so good. You have podcasts to listen to. You have a camp to go to. You have a coffee shop to stop by. This is the best introduction to your best new friend. But truly Catherine, everyone that I know that knows you is like, she's just the best. You're just absolutely incredible.

But I remember just speaking to your story. I remember at Passion Conference, and I know your story, I've heard your story several times from you, and I remember the last passion that you spoke at, it just gripped me in such a fresh way. But when you stood up on stage and you said this line, you said, you have stunning capacity to do really hard things. And I have said that to so many people since I heard you say that. I've said that to myself. I actually quoted you and wrote that in

my next book coming out because that's what I told you. You don't know how much you've impacted me and little things that you've said and different things that I've heard you say, but you do, you really do have a stunning capacity to do really hard things. And when I think about your life, because it really hits me like, I don't know, it just hits deep.

You know, I almost didn't wear mascara today because I knew I was probably going to get emotional talking uh... but i just feel like uh... i'm twenty six right now and i've done different modeling and acting in different things and i just feel like similar to where you were at where you were modeling and acting in having your first baby in twenty six years old uh... you never thought that was gonna happen to your life, obviously.

None of us expect the worst to happen in our life. But the fact that you have not only survived it, but you have, you've survived it, you've thrived in it, and you've also helped so many other people who go through the absolute worst or the tragedy or the hardest thing, not only just survive it, but really live a life full in it. And that is just like so incredibly inspiring. So I wanna talk a little bit about hope and what that word has meant to you

and how I guess you started to find hope after that really, really hard time when you were coming back into your new reality. Right. And well, first of all, that's so powerful. You're saying that, that you are currently a 26-year-old young mother and very similar, probably, to me. Lo loved the Lord. As a 26 year old, I did not know the depth of Jesus that I do today, but similarly, had a feeling early on after the stroke as still a 26 year old, like, wait, this is not a drill. This is not a drill.

This is my real life. And it was, I mean, you can imagine like you can't even fathom everything changing in an instant and you can never drive a car again and can never walk again and on and on. I can't hold your baby. It means the stuff of your nightmares. And yet, even in those nightmare situations, Jesus sustained and carried me because, as you said, we do not know this, but we have stunning capacity because of Jesus in our story to do incredibly hard things because He will supply Every need his divine power has given us everything that we need He gives us eyes to dream new dreams for our lives That are better than our old dreams could ever be he gives us

the ability to endure and to persevere and to Get he gives us new eyes to see a new reality. Wow. And I guess that's, that's the beginning of me answering the question of this hope is the reality is for all of your listeners and for you and for me, we could play the what if game nonstop. Everybody could say, what if I did this? What if I did that?

What if I married this guy? What if I hadn't gone here? What if I went there? And for me, I have a pinnacle story of I was getting dizzy in college and went to the doctor and the doctor wrongly diagnosed me with vertigo and had he ordered an MRI, he would have seen that this was in my brain and he didn't. So what if I would have had an MRI? You get it, on and on.

But the reality is that this what if loop, the cycle we all do gets us nowhere, paralyzes us and terrorizes us. But the escape hatch, I believe, off of the loop is hope. Then when we have real hope, we're off. We're like, nope, this is it. Because hope gives us permission to live our actual lives. It frees us to say, no, no more of this. Instead, I'm going, I'm not gonna waste my life. I want to escape and then have permission

to move from what if to what is. And what is right here, right here. And this is what I do. That is so good. I'm like, wow, I wish I could stand up and take a lap. I always say this to people who are on the podcast. I say, these are the moments I wish I wasn't the host and I was a listener because I'm like,

where can I write this down? I need to make my own notes. I'm like taking this in for myself. I literally am looking over at, no, I'm literally looking over at my pen and my paper. I'm like, how far would it take for me to reach that and write that down? Because it's actually so crazy

because I probably like shouldn't say this because it's so not well thought out yet, but I'm already thinking about what I'm gonna speak on at LO conference. And one thing that I keep thinking about is just our spiritual reality and how our spirituality is so different than what our reality looks like in the moment.

And I just think that that whole what if to what is is exactly what I feel like God's been putting in my heart to saying like, hey, don't think about the what ifs. Don't think about even what it looks like in the right now. Like, what is actually true in the right now is this. It's this truth of scripture. It's this truth of what I say about you, of who I made you to be. And so I'm sitting here and I'm like, this is everything I've been thinking about

and thinking towards and reading about. So I'm like, can I reach over and write that down? That's so good, Katherine. It kind of makes me think of just the whole message of your podcast, like the good hard story. I love the whole concept of that. Can you talk a little bit about just the messaging of the good and the hard and how that can be one?

I do. I obviously am a big fan of the good hard life. And that is the name of my podcast, The Good Hard Story, because we are all living good hard stories, because nobody's story is perfect. Yeah. There is good and hard in every story. They're not mutually exclusive. Like we make them in our modern Western world.

We want to think either things are really hard or they're really good. They can never coexist. And the reality is they totally coexist in the Christian life. We embrace a suffering savior who came to earth, disabled himself, I believe, to the human body, and died like the good heart of the story of every story on earth is both. You know, I had a very difficult time

embracing after my stroke the notion of Psalm 84 11 that no good thing has he withheld from those walking uprightly with him. How could that be true? How could it be true that God withholds no good thing? And the reality, I kind of did a deep dive and stumbled upon a beautifully written theologian's essay from the 1600s. His name was Sir Richard Baker. Look it up. He writes that the good things of God can never be taken because they are not things at all. They're nothing in the physical world. That the truly good things of God are peace of conscience, joy in the Holy Spirit, the fruition of his presence in this life, and the assurance of his face in the next. Of these things, we can know God will never withhold, because they are nothing that this physical

world could ever touch. And for me, I mean, that's just such a deep, beautiful truth that my soul knows, like somewhere even inside of me, I know that's true. I understand. Something about translating it to my head and my understanding of, oh, in Him, nothing will ever be taken from me that actually matters, no matter what happens to my physical body.

It's not about the physical. It's about the soul. And my soul is good. I got Jesus in here. I'm good. And yet, I fall and break my leg and I fall in a bathtub and crack a rib and things can be really rough. And yet, the good things of God have never left me now for one moment. And I think that is a glorious, glorious truth of our faith. ["Dreams of a Better World"]

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Terms and conditions apply. Wow, that's so, so beautiful. I was thinking about like how you said, you have that in your soul and then sometimes, you know, you have to get that and the rest of you, like I feel that way, where I love that verse. It's like, love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, then sometimes you know you have to get that and the rest of you like I feel that way where I love that verse it's like love the Lord your God with all your heart with all your soul with all your mind and one of my prayers lately has been like God I love you with all my heart

I believe this with all my heart I believe in my soul but help my mind to get on board you know like help my mind to also believe that because like my thoughts will start creeping in or this side or the other the doubt and I'm like God get my mind on board with what my heart believes. Sometimes I got to get my soul back on board. I gotta preach it to my own heart. Psalm 42,5 we see that happening. The psalmist says why are you downcast oh my soul why are you in turmoil within me? Hope in God, for I will again praise him, my rock and my salvation. So we literally see the psalmist

have to like get the soul back on board. Like I know much deeper than what I'm feeling in this moment. I know what I truly want and need. And these feelings are not getting me there. I gotta get back, aligned with what I truly believe. And honestly, side note, our world is obsessed with living your authentic life, right?

So this actually is the most authentic, because it's what I believe. So I'm gonna get my soul back on board So like, this actually is the most authentic because it's what I believe. So I'm gonna get my soul back on more of this one I actually authentically believe. It makes sense. That's so good. I love that way of looking at it.

And one of the things that I love about hearing the way that you process, I guess, what you've been through too, is like the scriptures that you've read, the, what you just been through too is like the scriptures that you've read the What you just quoted from that man like you really had to dive into Finding these answers for yourself and the truth for yourself because I think so many people it's like yeah You want to you want to get better again how we talked about you want the good outcome But you don't want to do the hard work to get there and I think that is so important like

to get there. And I think that it is so important. Like, Christian and I went through something a few years ago that was, you know, the hardest thing we had walked through. And that was, and I've shared this story in like small capacities, but Honey, our daughter, she had something happen medically that was very unexpected, very scary. She ended up having to get air flighted to a bigger city for a hospital. We were gone. We were speaking at a passion event and it was just really, really scary. It was really hard. And I remember similarly when I was there reading a Psalm that I was just kind of processing what I was going through in the moment and reading this Psalm.

And it actually helped me navigate my feelings because I really felt like I didn't really know what to pray at the time, but the psalmist was literally saying what I didn't know how to say to the Lord. And so I was just kind of like tagging along to what he said, you know? And just processing through it

through the way that he did with God. Well, that wasn't like, oh, okay, that made it so much better. You know what I mean? That helped, but it wasn't like, okay, that's it. That's good. I found the truth. Like it was months, months of a process

and me kind of just walking out what that looked like with the Lord. And it exposed so many of my fears and so many of just all the things. And Christian and I in our marriage, we had never gone through something like that together so we had to process how we process things completely differently and it takes us a different route and so anyways it was just a thing that we had to go through and I think about this

like for one thing that I love about your podcast and your books and stuff is like you teach people how to grieve and one thing that you never do is you don't sugar coat it. You don't sugar coat the hard. And I think for me, like, I don't know, you have such a joyful personality and maybe you've experienced this in the past too, but for me it's like, I just want everything to be good. And so I would just like, just try to like put a bow on it

or put a scripture to it or like, okay, wrap this up. But the thing is like that doesn't heal it, right? Like you have to go through the process. So can you speak a little bit about diving into those hard questions? Absolutely. The reality is, and you're exactly right, I do have a joyful, exuberant personality,

but that's hard for us at this point. That's not necessarily the baseline. The reality is, after the stroke, before I could really come up for air, before I could speak or write about it, process it fully, I spent five years in the darkness, rustling, not knowing how I could live this disabled body life, never walk on my own, never drive a car, probably never have more biological children. That's what they were saying at the time. Just have my entire world flipped like, God, I don't even know if I can live this way. So those first five years of processing, which for some people, it may be 15, it may be 30. I don't know. For me, taking the time to lament,

to feel the weight of the loss and honestly, letting the story break my heart, letting me be wrecked, like I'm not okay this is shocking and it's horrible and I don't pretend to put a Jesus band-aid on this bullet wound because I'm gonna need so much more of Jesus than merely a bandaid. Like, come on. Like, my whole life's been turned upside down. The thought of a cliche Bible verse is ludicrous. I need the deep truths of Jesus. I don't need to hear Romans 8.28 right now.

All things are working together for those who love him. Yes, but I'm gonna need that down the road him. Yes. But I'm going to need that down the road. On day one, I'm going to need to cry and let this story break my heart. I'm going to recognize and process that this is messed up. This is not okay. I'm not tying a hopeful bow around this one. No, no, no. That's so good. I love how you said, I don't want to put a Jesus bandaid on a bullet wound.

Like, I need a lot more Jesus than that. I was actually listening to one of your podcasts on grieving with people, and you talk about how less words are the best words. And I thought that was such a good, helpful piece of advice because that is so real. It's like, everyone kind of feels that way when you have a friend go through something extremely hard

where you're so overthinking what you're gonna say or how you're gonna show up or if you're gonna show up and should I and this and that and the other. And you really dive into it's your presence is really what's needed. And I love how you speak on the tears, speak for themselves. Like you didn't need to hear Romans 8.28 at the time.

And you really just needed someone to sit with you and to lean into your story with you. So I love that you talk about that. So tell me a little- Say I love that you are calling that out because that's everything. The ministry of tears versus the ministry of truth. Like, yeah, cry with people, get in there, The ministry of tears versus the ministry of truth.

Like, yeah, cry with people, get in there, be present and listen empathetically, but don't try to put a bunch of words around it. It's not time yet. That's so, it's so helpful and so freeing too, because everyone can show up. Like you can show up as a friend. You might not know the words to say,

you might not know how to process, but you don't need to. They don't have that either. I was actually talking to someone literally right before I got on this call. And this person is a friend, a very close friend to someone else who just went through an extremely tragic situation, very unexpected. And he was telling me that, I mean, he just, you know, immediately got emotional and he said that his friend called him as soon as it happened and he was there four hours later. He got on a plane, just got there. And he said, I didn't know what to do in that situation, but I just knew I needed to be there. And I actually told him what I just heard you say about just that idea of showing up in your tears. And he was just kind of saying that was really all he could give, but how powerful that was and how, you know, coming from that, it's like, there wasn't anything said,

there's not a bow to put on there, there's nothing to do. It's just to be and to know that these people are with you. It's just awful, it's awful that this happened. It's terrible, it's tragic. And my tears, I give to you. Because this is jacked up. And we live in a horrible fallen world, and yet there is such a deep real joy available in Jesus.

And those coexist. I mean, that's it. It's so true. Oh man, I love that you keep saying it coexists. Actually, my friends and I say it like this because we always talk about how like, a lot of life is bittersweet, you know? Like most seasons, there's like something bitter

and there's something sweet. So we'll kind of say it like, okay, what's your bitter and what's your sweet? Like what's going on right now that's hard and what's going on right now that's good. Because there's most of the time, both, you know? And some seasons there's more of maybe the bitter and a little bit of the sweet and some vice versa.

There's a lot of sweet. And I remember even walking with one of my friends, my best friend, you know, Lainey. Lainey, you know, she's been so open about her story with grief when she lost her second baby. And it was really hard because when she lost her baby, I was pregnant with mine. And I just remember being like so overwhelmed by how we were going to walk through that together as best friends, because I was truly mourning with her as a

friend. But of course, rejoicing what what I walking in, but mourning with her alongside of that. And we learned a lot of what it looks like for to be able that God gave us a stunning capacity to be able to rejoice with those who rejoice and to mourn with those who mourn. And sometimes that is at the same time and vice versa. I've gone through things like I mentioned with Honey that were extremely hard when others of my friends were going through extremely great times

But yeah, you learn how to do that as humans who I love how it talks about again I wish I could quote this verse better, but it talks about like we you know But like get comfort from like the god of comfort. I can't even remember how I know Yes, second Corinthians one that we comfort others with the comfort that we ourselves have received. It's a cycle of comfort. Yes, I love that. I love that verse because I always think about that when it

comes to those times where a friend is going through something hard and you're having a good time in life or you're going through something hard and there it's like you have the ability to comfort each other because we have been comforted by the ultimate comforter. And so anyways, gosh we could talk about this forever but I want to get to talking about your camp because I think on the note of being with other people and comforting other people and being alongside other people going through hard things, tell me about just the

vision behind you and Jay starting this camp. You know, we've been on the go lately, and so it is so nice to just be home, even if it's just for a night. We love being home. We love being with our people just in the space that we love most. And one of the things that makes our home extra comfy and cozy are our miracle made sheets. Thanks to the silver infused NASA inspired fabrics that are designed to keep you at the perfect temperature all night long, miracle made sheets help you get a better night's sleep every single night. The silver that's infused into miracle sheets prevent up to 99.7% of bacterial growth, leaving

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our guest bed so that they can have the same experience whenever people stay with us. We love also that they stay clean or longer, just makes us feel better knowing we have kids in the bed and our dog in the bed and all the things, knowing that have a little extra support there. So go to trymiracle.com slash woe to try Miracle Made Sheets today and whether you're buying them for yourself or buying them for a loved one, which would be an incredible gift to give someone, you can order today and save 40 percent. So also if you use the code WOA at checkout,

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Go to trymiracle.com slash woe and use the code woe to claim your free three piece towel set and save over 40% off. Again, that's trymiracle.com slash woe to treat yourself today. Oh goodness. Well, there was such a need. You know, many times when someone has a disability, they're sent off to a camp-like setting on their own. And our thought was, wait, don't, like, I don't want to go to a camp by myself.

I want my family to be there. I want to experience a family unit and my kids, my husband need refreshment and the deep truth of Jesus in a vacation like summertime in Alabama, even more than I do sometimes. And we wanted a place of just radical belonging and belovedness for people affected by disability and their families to come together and to create a sense of normalcy in it and a kind of a rebellion, honestly, or a belly into the darkness. I call it that we get to be joy rebels and rebel joyfully to the lie.

We get to disrupt the lie. I believe that joy can only come in a pain free life because we know that's not true. Yeah. When you are in our camp community and very much seeing life is not okay. There's somebody that's an amputee right here and this little girl has spider-bifida And this man has another condition and very much in front of your face is like wow Everything is just messed up in this world. It's this bizarre Freedom because no one's pretending everything's okay. Yeah is falling apart. It's so freeing.

So we're all like, but you know what? We're here. And we have this moment. And we have each other. And we have Jesus. And we can do this hard life because we are not alone. We are with each other. it's it's just a bomb to the soul. It's amazing. Our camp community is just the coolest. I can't

wait to be there one day and I know you kind of shouted this out to the people listening at the beginning but that you are able to volunteer so if that's something as you're listening you're able to step into definitely where can you go to look into how to do that? Thank you for asking. Hopehealscamp.org or just go to our website Hopeheals.com and please come and volunteer. Everyone who volunteers leaves saying this was the best week of my life and they've been serving in the heat of Alabama in the summertime, people with disabilities,

and they could be going on a safari in Africa and they still say, hope Hills can't beat it. It was the coolest experience of my entire life because service does that. You know that Sadie serving other people to unlock something deep in the soul. It changes how you feel about your story, which if I may, I'd love to say that to your listeners that that is what we are called to do. Everybody is change the narrative, flip the script. Who says you can't love your story, even if it's a hard story. You can, you can say, you know what?

I never would have chosen this for my life, not in a million years, but for some reason, this is it. And I get to decide how I feel now. And I feel great, because Jesus is right here with me. There are twists and turns and pain and problems. But I get to decide that, you know what? This is a great story. This is a great life.

And nobody else gets to tell you how to feel about your story. You get to decide that. That's so good. I love that so much. It's actually one of my favorite things that you talk about is that you get to decide that. That's so good. I love that so much. It's actually one of my favorite things that you talk about is that you get to decide. And I love how when you talk about it, you're talking to such a wide scale of people

who go through so many different things. I mean, you get to decide in your story where you experienced something at 26 years old that was life altering. You get to decide when you're going through the hard thing with your kids being in the hospital, but then I've also heard you even say that when you moved to Georgia,

you decided that you love Georgia before. You're exactly right. Sadie, I love how much you're talking. You're exactly right. That when we moved from California back to Atlanta five years ago, we live in Atlanta, Georgia now, I decided while we were still in California, guess what? We're gonna love it in Georgia. I decided while we were still in California, guess what?

We're going to love it in Georgia. It's going to be awesome. And like it's going to top anything that was happening in Los Angeles, California. And Atlanta is absolutely amazing. So it's not that I'm, you know, making that up. But potentially I could be like, that's okay, but instead I'm like, I love it here. This place is amazing and I think there's a lot to that. Just go ahead and decide. It's gonna be awesome because it is. I love that so much because I actually

say that all the time about where I live. So we live in a small town and there's not like a ton of exciting things here, but I love it here and it's so funny because Albie's talking about how much I love it here and it catches people so off guard. They're like, what? Like you love living here, people that have lived here forever. And I'm like, I love it here. Like, this is so great. And I do think that a lot of it is like how you choose to talk about things, how you choose

to respond to things, pre-deciding that you're going to love it and you choose to talk about things, how you choose to respond to things, pre-deciding that. That's it. You're going to love it and you're going to have a good time. It's how you narrate it to your head and your heart and other people. Narration is so important. How do I speak about this? How do I intentionally tell my head and my heart that this is what we're doing. Yep. So beautiful. You know, we moved into our house the end of last year, and it's been so fun as each season rolls around to just make new memories in the house with this season. And so we're so excited for all of our summer adventures.

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I love that. Okay, I wanna also just ask you about this book because this is the first book that you wrote solo, right? So tell us a little bit about why you wrote this book and this the process of doing it. Well I should say it's not solo, it's without Jay, but it's with my sister-in-law, Alex Wolf. So essentially, I know too much to write a straight up devotional. You know, it's just, I mean, I Lord love a devotional, but many times a devotional can be pretty one note.

And this is a devotional, but I don't call it that because this is a reflection guide and it has three sections. So it's for the hurting, for the hoping and for the healing. And I know one day you can feel hopeful, but the next day you're back to hurting and the next day you're healing. And I wanted a choose your own adventure situation that you can you can cherry pick 100 percent and say today I'm feeling great. I'm healing. Here we go. I'm healing others and love and life. But the next day it's back to being shook that this is my reality and I need truth and

comfort from that place. So each section is 30 entries, but 90 total. So 90 reflections on finding bright hope hidden in a hurt. And I think it's the reason deeply that I felt called to write this is because I needed it so deeply 16 years ago that when my life blew up, I needed a short consumable entry of real authentic, not a sugar coatingating of it, hope that would sustain. And I also needed thoughtful processing of life. I needed a reality. And, and sounds like you're this way too, Sadie. I like resources.

I like a lot of information. I like to know what I know, what I know. I like to engage it and listen to other voices and take things in and learn the right lessons from what's happening in my story. I just think people are such robots these days, just going to regurgitate something they heard or without really thinking it through. And instead we really need these thoughtful, hard work of

marinating on all things. And once you marinate, learn some lessons and then talk from that place. So I'm really wrestling with the hard stuff here and not just a feel good thing or a self help thing. Please, that doesn't help at all. No, that is so real. We talk about that all the time on this show because a lot of people actually,

I've actually shared the story before, but a friend that's become a friend, she was listening to this podcast and she is not a believer, didn't go to church and she loves self-help books. And then she started listening to this podcast and she started hearing all these authors who are Christian authors and believers and she was like, okay, well, I'll start reading some of their books. And then she started to realize that these books are so deeply anchored in the truth of the Bible, so she starts reading the Bible.

And then all of a sudden she's like, this is so much better than self-help because it's actually true, like life altering, transformative things. And so it's just so good. And I love that because we've hinted at this. I mean, it's really the coolest story. We've hinted at this a lot. You can't just put a bandaid on these things because the bandaid falls off. Band-aids are not meant to last forever.

They literally cover your wound and then they come off. And so I think that's why it's so important to marinate in those things and find that deep truth and really understand it after wrestling through it and coming out the other side of it because that doesn't fall off. That sustains and lasts for the long haul. And so yes, I love listening to things.

I love all the resources. I love listening to things that you have to listen to again because you didn't quite understand half of it the first time because it was just a little too over your head. A hundred percent. But it's good for you. Me too. That's plenty of the time.

Goodness, I need to hear that one again. I'm like, can we replay it? Yeah, that's like so true about, I think Louie and and Shelley tell this story all the time about the very first passion they had, and they had John Piper speak. And it was so funny because Louie really wanted John Piper to speak, and he spoke, and no one understood the sermon at all. And everyone's telling Louie, they're like, don't have him back, no one understood it. And then he spoke again the next day. And then what he spoke on the next day pulled everyone back into actually understanding

the night before. And so then they were all like, wow, that was so deep. And then all these people bought his books and Louie said one of the greatest like affirmations to having Dr. Piper, who's brilliant by the way, not a knock at him, it's just his brilliance, he was a little bit above college students' heads, including me, every time I listen to John Piper, I'm like, by the way. I'm not a knock at him, it's just his brilliancy was a little bit above college students' heads. Totally.

Including me. Every time I listen to John Piper, I'm like, I'm going to have to rewind that. But anyways, Louis was going through the dorms, and he saw all these people who had been to that first passion, which was one day at the time. They had John Piper's book in their room. And he said what he loved about that is he said, yes,

it was a little bit too hard to understand But it made people reach a little higher to grab it and that's what we should do You know, we all need to reach a little higher to go a little deeper to understand absolutely Yeah, I have so loved this conversation Catherine. I've loved everything you shared I've been deeply impacted by even the process of preparing for this podcast, and of course now, the podcast, and so like I said to everyone listening, you have your new best friend from afar to go dive into

all the books, all the stories, volunteer for their camp, show up at their coffee shop, anything that the Wolf Family is doing, make sure you support and encourage them along the way. Oh my gosh, Cekacey, remember when I saw you at Super Rica in Atlanta with Lynn and Shelly, the Mexican restaurant I love, the coffee shop is literally 30 seconds from Super Rica.

No way. Yeah, down the road. Okay, I love that. I love that even more because I love Super Rica and actually I'm gonna be in Atlanta soon and you know I'm going to Super Rica, so I'm going to the coffee shop. Yay! I'll see you there!

For sure, well I love you friend. Thank you for writing this book and being who you are. Love you Sadie, likewise. I love watching you be who you are for Jesus. you