Let’s Talk About Suffering: A Conversation with Katherine Wolf
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Like Joni Eareckson Tada, Katherine Wolf knows what it means to suffer. In 2008, at 26 years old, just 6 months after having a baby boy, Katherine unexpectedly suffered a catastrophic brain-stem stroke. According to the odds, the stroke should have killed her. Katherine survived the stroke, and a month-long coma that followed it, but not without scars, physical and emotional.
Some of Katherine’s most profound physical scars—including paralysis in half her face and disabilities that make her rely on a wheelchair—didn’t come from her stroke directly. In order to save Katherine’s life after the stroke, her wise surgeon had to make sacrifices. Some of his careful cuts caused permanent disabilities.
While it took years for Katherine to marvel at her scars, she now sees them differently—as marks of a miraculous second-chance life.
“Scars are the proof that we live—and I’m alive!”
Katherine
In the wake of the stroke, and through ongoing difficulties that come with disability, Katherine and her husband Jay have learned to take joy in doing hard things in the good story God is writing in their lives.
Suffering Strong in Community
If you ask Katherine and Jay about God’s work in their lives, they will tell you that healing doesn’t come in isolation. And they have not traveled the road to healing alone.
In this podcast conversation, Crystal Keating asked Katherine about the role of the church in her healing journey.
When Katherine lay in a coma post-stroke, members of her church stayed in the hospital waiting room around the clock, 24/7. By the time Katherine left the hospital, a corner of the waiting room kept its nickname: Katherine’s Corner.
Through 13 surgeries, countless falls, and recent knee surgeries, the Wolf family had experienced the body of Christ rallying around them.
“When we feel connected and cared for, we can get well. We need people to help do life.”
Katherine
Held up by the body of Christ, we can “Suffer Strong” (the title of the Wolfs’ second book), meaning that we can do hard things in the good story that God is writing in and through our lives.
In Katherine’s experience, while pain or discouragement might feel too strong for an individual to bear, loving community can change the dynamic and experience of suffering. Sometimes it takes another believer to reframe our suffering: to remind us that the story God is writing has many chapters and seasons, and God has the whole story in mind (not just the struggles).
Katherine and Jay have learned that they are not alone.
“We’ve all got burdens. We can’t heal alone. God made us to need each other.”
Katherine
Is it possible to find healing if there is no cure for the condition, disability, or pain that I live with?
Of course, not all wounds, and certainly not all disabilities are going to “heal.” But Katherine draws a distinction between “curing” and “healing.” She also points out that every person needs soul- and heart-healing, even more urgently than we need relief from our physical ailments and limitations.
“In the disability community, we have not-physically-healed people whose souls are healed. They have the ability to live in a body and story they never expected, but with hope so deep that it can sustain a life that feels very hard.
This is all of our story—whether we suffer from a broken body, marriage, or finances. We all have deep wounds. And deeper than situational or physical ‘fixes,’ we need healing in our inner lives—our hearts, souls, and spiritual worlds.”
Katherine
As Joni has learned after years of praying for God to heal her body, and subsequent decades of paralysis in a wheelchair, God’s good story may not match our own vision for our lives—but his love and purposes bring healing of a greater kind. And today, the Joni and Friends ministry, serving people around the world living with disability, testifies to the Lord’s loving power working through Joni’s life—not despite her difficulties, but through them.
What’s the best way to support people who are suffering?
To suffer strong in community, we need to learn how to be together and care for one another amid hardship and pain. We need to understand what helps someone in pain and what just makes suffering more unbearable.
On the podcast, Crystal asked Katherine to share some tips on what helps, and what doesn’t help, in a season of deep suffering.
“Less words are the best words in acute seasons of suffering.”
Katherine
While it’s tempting to provide words of wisdom, or quote key scriptures to a person in pain, trying to give them perspective, closure, or objectivity, well-meaning words can often do more harm than good.
Sentiments, quotes, sugar-coating, and clichés can sharpen suffering.
“After a child dies, parents don’t need to hear, ‘God needed another angel in heaven.’ Beyond the theological problems with that statement, it’s not helpful.”
Katherine
Asked what does help when the pain feels overwhelming, Katherine suggested presence more than specific words:
“Presence and the ministry of peers is all that’s needed. Grieve with each other before offering truth or ‘encouragement’.”
Katherine
When it comes to words of encouragement that actually worked, Katherine recalls a friend saying, “I cannot believe you are going through this. This is shocking and horrific.” The honesty of this response allowed Katherine and her friend to cry together—it unlocked something and allowed a little piece of healing to happen.
“We need to mirror and share one another’s bewilderment over what has happened in our broken lives,”
Katherine
Katherine and Crystal agreed. Wise words and scriptural truth can help, down the road, a little later.
How can I reframe my suffering?
Sometimes we need to look at our suffering from a new vantage point. Joni has helped countless people find hope in affliction by sharing her hope in Christ, which has deepened and flourished through her decades living with quadriplegia.
Like Joni, Katherine often finds herself talking to people facing gut-wrenching, unthinkable circumstances. She will hear about a woman in another state who is about to have a leg amputated. A family member wants Katherine to call this stranger and offer encouragement. What does she say?
“I wish I could look you in the eye and tell you that suffering is not the end of your story. Suffering is the new beginning. For some reason you do not understand, and may not for a long time, this is it: this is your path.”
Katherine
There is life on the other side of what you’re going through.
And God is with you every step of the way. And you’re going to make it. And what you get to do with your life now is become a survival guide. You get to blaze a trail that someone else will walk on. You’re lighting the way. You’re showing how to do it—how to walk with Jesus through terrible pain and suffering.”
Katherine’s message doesn’t remove a person’s suffering. But it does provide a perspective shift: suffering won’t last forever, but you will! And so will God’s love, mercy, and good purposes in your life. When Jesus gets involved, no pain, however terrible, lacks purpose.
“If you’ve got a pulse, you’ve got a purpose.”
Katherine
And armed with purpose, we can find joy and strength, even amid acute or ongoing suffering.
Treasure in the Dark
Amputation, disability, cancer, divorce, bankruptcy, loss of a loved one, depression…we all face difficulties and darkness. With the strength and light of God and his body, we all have a trail to blaze.
As we do, Katherine offers a bright encouragement from Scripture:
“I will give you hidden treasures, riches stored in secret places, so that you may know that I am the Lord, the God of Israel, who summons you by name.”
Isaiah 45:3
The Lord has been with Katherine and Jay Wolf in their darkness. He has been with Joni Eareckson Tada in her darkest hours. The Lord who knows you by name is with you, too, empowering you to take the next steps through the darkness.
As Isaiah 45:3 promises, the Lord has tucked secret treasures away for you to find in the dark. He summons you by name and will never leave you. And behind you, the trail you blaze will ease the journey of another person who will follow in your steps. As you follow him and “suffer strong,” he writes a good story in your life, and the lives of others.
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