Speaker 1 0:02

Hello. Hi.

Speaker 2 0:10

I used to be with you all today. I'm Jay

Speaker 3 0:12

and I'm Catherine

Speaker 2 0:14

and man, we moved actually from California. We were in LA for 14 years and moved to Georgia to be with our families about six months ago. So this is our first trip back to California. Thanks for the excuse to come back out here and we miss California so much.

Speaker 1 0:29

She's amazing to be here again.

Speaker 2 0:31

But I would love getting to be with your community already today and thanks so much for having us. And today basically we're going to share our story with you, but we do want to gauge it first in a, in a specific way because it will be really easy to probably dissociate this rather crazy story in some ways. You're about to hear from your own, and I'm sure you have your own crazy stories too. So, but what we want you to listen to and the lens that we want you to kind of look at our story at is that this is your story too . The specifics might be a little different, but we believe that God is writing this big story in the world, the healing of broken things, a new life where there should only be death and this is the story he's telling in big and small ways through all of our stories. So that's our story and the themes of it. But it's your story too because it's God's story in this world.

Speaker 3 1:24

Absolutely. We like to say that we're all disabled. We know that it's kind of crazy and provocative, but we all have pain and takes different forms for sure and likely is not the same as ours or our story. And you probably didn't have a brainstem show can the nearly die and become disabled, but you probably have had some hard stuff in your story,

Speaker 2 1:52

although we have said that before and somebody raised their hand and said, I did have.

Speaker 3 1:55

That's true. That's true. Yeah. No, you never know first year, but we all have inner wheelchairs. We say even if you don't have one on the outside and everything is not okay in any of us. And perhaps one of the beautiful things about the body of Christ is there some more recognition of the brokenness that we all have and our need for Jesus. So I think we're all aware that this life is not necessarily okay that John 1633 is true in this world. We will have truffle and and we can take heart at the same time because he's overcome the world.

Speaker 2 2:35

That's right. Well, we're going to jump in to our story today and it began where I think a lot of great stories start, which is at a wedding and it's our wedding because it's our story, but we are from the South. That's like I said, we moved back to the South to be with our families, but I'm , I'm from Alabama. Catherine's from Georgia and we met at college place called Sanford, which is a small Christian college. When we moved to California was awesome because everybody thought we had gone to Stanford and we just sort of let them think that that was one. Yeah, one but it was not that one. That was another one. Anyway, we, we got together in college. We met, had a lot of ups and downs and God really made it clear that he wanted us to live this adventure of marriage together. And so my dad married us, he's a pastor and he for some reason decided to speak and preach over us. Matthew seven if you know the sermon on the Mount, the very end of that, there's this parable that Jesus paints of, of a house being built and house being built on the sand and then one being built on the rock and Jesus said, it really matters what you found your life on because the storms of life are going to come. Not, not if they're going to come, but when they're going to come. And it's really going to mean everything. What you've founded your life fund , and if you found it on the sand, the storms are going to take it down. But if you found it on the rock, which is me, you're going to be able to withstand any storm . And we're like, dad, that is a really bummer wedding message because the love chapter is what you're supposed to preach from at a wedding. And we talking about our house falling down in storms. And that's never gonna . That's not gonna happen anytime soon. So, but in his wisdom, he gave us that truth that you don't know what tomorrow brings. It matters what you invest your life in today and when you're building your life built on the rock and his Christ because the storms are going to come and it will mean everything that you have founded your life on something solid. And so we leave that place for young, you know , kind of naive, stupid. We go to California just to have this adventure. We didn't know anybody, we didn't have family there, but I was going to go to law school at Pepperdine and Catherine had been doing some modeling in the Southeast and got an agent in LA and thought she would try her hand in the big city.

Speaker 3 4:50

And yeah, we always like to make it clear, the Catherine's modeling career was a really big deal. You may have heard of juice cell or Catherine was. Um, it's like huge. So Los Angeles model is like, I'm in the pinnacle, right? So I think we have a picture of the epitome of my modeling career. Wait , just when I was standing at the Tiki hut, it's Disney land modeling their new moon moon . So I didn't made it as a model in Los Angeles

Speaker 2 5:27

and that's not me in that picture. I don't know who that strange man is holding my wife's hand or that shirt. I don't know about that. But anyway , we had this early married life, you know , full of figuring out what we were called to do, have dreams working out and others not. And the one thing we did right, I think if nothing else was that we found a church home. And for some reason it's probably just my dad's voice nagging us in my head that we had to get plugged in and build our life on something that was solid. And so that first Sunday in LA we found a church bell air pres church. Some of you might've know know about it in Los Angeles and that was our church home and our family for the entire time. We stayed in LA from our first tour last Sunday. And I can say with confidence today, we're it not for the buddy price. You wouldn't be sitting up here in front of you. And side note, if you made a body of Christ in this place, I think this is a pretty good one to plug your life into and to invest in. You'll never go wrong given your life to the church. It's the , it's the most precious investment. And so we were able to do that. And what's funny is that we, you know, we're 22 been married about six months and the leader of our young married Sunday school moved away and we said, Oh well we'll, we'll lead it. And the stupid thing was that they let us actually lead a married group after six months of marriage and being 22 but nobody else would cause that lays a little flaky . He might've heard that. And so we were the good Southern volunteers. But what was really precious as God was given us the season before, everything would change before the storm would come to prepare us for what he had prepared for us. And so we were looking at the harder issues of marriage. We were in the word, you know, we were doing Bible studies in small groups and counseling other couples with struggles in their marriage, not knowing that it would be for us, that God was giving us this chance to really pour deeply into our own marriage. Fast forward a few years to the very end of law school, we had a baby and he was a little bit of a surprise baby. It wasn't in our five year plan to have a baby at the end of law school , uh, when I was trying to graduate. But James Thompson Wolfe was born in the fall of 2007 and it was right on time really because God's five year plan is always better than our five year plan. Right. And six months, almost to the day after that picture was taken, we would face that great storm in our life on April 21st, 2008 . And that question of what are we founded on would mean everything to us that day.

Speaker 3 7:57

And yeah, it was just a totally normal morning. I felt weird. It had headaches and dizziness, but that wasn't that unusual because I've had a baby six months before. So I'm like permanently in a fog and felt funny and plus I'm perfectly healthy. I've had no medical history, no family history, no reason anything would be off and deal. So I put the baby down for a nap and decided I'm just going to get all of us my day and you know, not worry about these weird issues. And Jay happens to come home from law school to print a paper and I'm in the kitchen and I fall through my hands and knees and they go numb and I started throwing up and I figured out quickly that something that's really wrong with me. So maybe with a call to him, excuse me, who calls nine month and they quickly come and figure out there is something really mad and they pack me up on the stretcher. And as we're leaving the Pepperdine married housing on the stretcher, I'm having all these like surfacy thoughts of life. We should give the test ride . She gets out just for night . And I wonder if I ate a weird Merida yesterday and that's what this is about. And like all these little thoughts and I had no idea that when I go unconscious, right then at Pepperdine in the married housing, it would only be two months later that I actually wake up from the coma thing I'd been in

Speaker 2 9:44

and Catherine would not ever see that first home again. Where we brought our baby tune , where we had really become adults and a married couple. And um, you know, sometimes seasons of our life close with the slam of a door, we don't really get to say goodbye to them. And that day in our life, April 21st, 2008 really is this line that's run through our history, this line of demarcation that we can't ever really go back across tribes . We might, and maybe you have a day in your life when everything changed in your story and it's maybe a diagnosis or a phone call or the loss of somebody you loved and you're , you're reminded of that right now. And for us, again, that was 10 years ago, almost a little over 10 years ago when everything changed. And I grabbed my son and we followed the ambulance down the Pacific coast highway to UCLA where they were going to take her to the ER of the day. Didn't even know they had a hospital, knew it was a college and thankfully they did because I come around the bend and there's this big billboard saying UCLA is the top hospital in the West, the number three hospital in the country. And just realizing as really all of this like upside down kind of sense of life and the rug being pulled out from under me is happening that I realized God is they're taking us to exactly where we need to be. And I rushed into the ER that day. It was a Monday in the afternoon, confused because I saw people I recognize in the waiting room and it was my church people who had come before me. Um , just sort of just show that I wasn't alone in this. And you know, that's what I think we all long for. Talk about anger. You know, when we feel like we're alone in our mess and our sadness and our unexpected circumstances, we get scared and we get angry that we've been left most of all by God, you know? And so I think in that moment I looked around and I saw the invisible God made visible and that helped diffuse sort of this sense of fight or flight and fear and struggle. And how am I going to do this about myself? Because God's like, my body is right here. It's me, made visible to you when you need me the most. And they kind of gathered around me and the neurosurgeon on call, dr Nestor Gonzalez was there saying, I'm so sorry to tell you this, but I don't, I don't think your wife is going to make it through the day. She's suffered a massive brainstem stroke and it's probably due to a malformation called an AVM. That's the actual picture of it that she's had her whole life and she never even had any symptoms or warning of . Unfortunately, it's the largest that I've ever seen. He said, and it's right around her brainstem and it's not a good location. And the bleeding is making her brain herniate down into her spine. And that's not survivable. And I'm so sorry. And so he said he needed to even go think if they could even try surgery. And frankly, because I was a lawyer, it wasn't helping the case for them to do it because lawyers Sue people unfortunately. So , um, but the Holy spirit I think came to him and just said, you need to give this mom a second chance. He could not get our baby and me holding that baby out of his head. And so he took her to surgery kind of against all odds and I was going to be eight hours of surgery probably. And so we , we gathered in the waiting room that night and my dad's a pastor. I got up in the Bible belt, but had never really experienced church till that night in the waiting room, I think because so often we seek, you know, this experience of worship and praise. Um , but the most pure form of it is not when everything's really going perfectly in our life, but it's when everything has fallen apart because we realize that there's no way out of this pit, but God having mercy on us and we cry out to him. And that's what we did that night. But we also just experienced life in its most beautiful state in the fact that we're not alone in this community that we have. And we get to laugh and cry and sing and broke bread or pizza. And it was , um, it was just this moment that I'll never forget , uh, people just showing up when I needed them the most when I needed God the most. And we read out of Romans eight into those incredible promises that God tells us that he's working on everything for good, that nothing can separate us from his love. But maybe you've read those too when the bottom fell out of your life and you wonder, could that be real? That feels like a lie. To think there's good in this moment that God's love is right here with me. When I might wake up tomorrow, my six month old baby doesn't have a mom anymore, you know? And yet I knew that God was inviting me to not just say those words, but to believe them in a different way and to stake my life on them. And Catherine's life on him . And the sun came up that next morning on April 22nd. And , uh , the doctor came out from surgery and looked exhausted and said he had not even looked at the clock and it had been 16 straight hours of surgery to save Catherine's life. And in so doing, they removed part of her brain and did a lot of damage around her brainstem just to try to save her life. And so he said, right now she, Catherine lived, she's alive, but we don't know if she's going to wake up or what the results will be. She might be paralyzed or vegetative, but for the moment she's alive. And that was really the beginning, that spark of hope that began in my life to think for some reason God had spared her and he wouldn't leave her there and the doctor said, you need to go rest. We'll put her in a medically induced coma to heal for a couple of days. And so he went to rest too . And that night the nurse from the ICU paged him and said, you've got to come up here. And he ran up thinking Catherine had died. The nurse said, you won't believe this. It's a miracle. But she's already trying to communicate. So I'm saying wiggle your toes. And she's wiggling them so she's not paralyzed. And when I say lift your fingers , she's lifting them. She's unconscious, but she's lifting them. So that means she's not brain dead. So as you can tell, they don't make medically induced coma is that prevent this woman from communicating to the world. She was in there and that don't give up on me, you know, wait for me. And , um, it was a great gift because there were plenty of families waiting next to their loved ones not knowing what they were waiting for. And so she was taken to the ICU and would be there on life support. Just learning how to breathe again for 40 days. And the real power of looking back on our stories is sometimes God in our stories, it's too close to see and to recognize. So we have to go look back. So I remember looking back on this and thinking, Oh my gosh, it wasn't 39 or 41, but it was 40 days in this wilderness. And God was saying, just because I'm silent doesn't mean I've abandoned you. I'm taking you to where I promised you.

Speaker 3 16:30

And I wish I could say the after that 40 days, everything was just awesome and perfect. He definitely wasn't yet. I , um , I, I should back up and tell you that, like said I had an AVM, which it was a birth defect. It was something I was born with that had grown and grown kind of like a really bad aneurysm. And then one day I had just blown up and caused this massive stroke. And I always like to say that the stroke was really debilitating and terrible. But what has left me with such terrible deficits is actually the lifesaving surgery, which is so cool as a Christian. To think of that when the surgeon decided to operate and then subsequently saved my life, he made choices to wound to me greatly to ultimately allow me to survive. So in the wounding came the healing. And I think that is such a beautiful point for the Christian life that many times in our tremendous woundings can ultimately be healing and freedom. And that's what that's all good to know. And not just in hindsight, I guess you'd say in the moment I have my feet up and acute rehab and um, I have a tube in my stomach that they're feeding me through and I have machines hooked up to me and I'm just in terrible pain and I don't even know what's going on. I mean, I think I've heard of somebody's grandmother who had a stroke like Shirley, a healthy 26 year old out of nowhere can have a stroke. And it was awful and painful and terrible. But by far and away, the very worst of it was my daily James viewings where sweet friends and family would bring the baby who's now eight months old, who'd been exclusively breastfed, cared for like my little sidekick by me. Um, from the moment if this burst is now being taken care of by other people. And , um, I think we may have a picture of my first mother's day where Jay brought him into the ICU room to see me. And that picture makes me just so sad because I don't have any memory of that, Dave . And, and um, you know, that's a deep loss. That will never be , um, not a loss. That's a loss. Even though there's such hope, there's still a loss. And , um , I missed my first mother's day. I was there kind of, and , um, it was really tough to me, a young mother and not be able to take care of your baby. It's horrifying. And um, they did deem me medically well enough to move to the brain rehab facility once I could sit up in bed for three minutes. And so I moved to a group therapy place where I'd live for another year and a half and that's when , um, it was both really good and really horrible. Um, which is weird to say. Always wanted to say like it was awesome cause Costa Colina where I was right here in Pomona, down from you , California. Um, what's great because I was relearning to walk and slowly relearning to eat and speak and you know, I was regaining a lot and yet there was so terrible because people, even in my specific therapy groups were, I'm not recovering. And there was actually people dying even in my therapy group three died actually. And people have such terrible cognitive issues that they may look fine the opposite of me, but they are, you know, they can't tell you the last name type deal or people are just so depressed. There's just so much depression and hopelessness and people just feel like this was their shot in life and now it's over. And it's just a really complex time for me to really, Russel was my faith and God's cousins in this. And everybody asked if I had a moment of total despair and I say yes and no. I mean I don't think I truly despaired or I don't think I would be sitting here, but I did come very close to it in the fall of 2008 about six months after I'd had the stroke , um, I would be tested cause I had this tube in my stomach to feed me, to see my swallowing has calmed that and they tested me against my, my night's test and I failed that number . Some reason failing the ninth swallow test , um, just really sent me into a place where I'm like, I'm not getting well, I'm not going to get well. And Jay wheeled me back to the house that we were living in next to the facility and she put me in the back of this big room. So I'm like sitting there and my Lowe's wheelchair, my heads like hanging down on my neck still . And he proceeded to the front of the room to play with James, who's now one and my sister in laws for in town. And they're like, you know, like probably looking around, but at least in my mind, like they look really like happy and whole and I'm just like sitting in the back of watching and I just have this moment of realizing like, it just dawned on me. It made perfect sense in that moment that God made a mistake and that I should have died and imply would've died. Then Jacob , Audrey , Mary James could have a normal mommy. Everybody could stop me and so sad. Then I'm just this horrible burden and I'm caught between life and death and like I don't fit . It's almost like this deep clarity that I see things are what they are, that God messed up on this month. And as I'm just wrestling through these , these thoughts that everything makes sense. I , um , I'm , I'm just gonna read it to you exactly what I hear and I'll tell you about it . Um, I just, even deeper than that kind of realization, that clarity, I have the sense that I did not want to be true , um, of not an audible voice of God, but very much an awakening of the scriptures that I'd known since I was small. Like a lot of it from vacation Bible school when I'm six years old, I think, and I'm going to read you, but I feel like the Lord was saying then and right now to all of us, Catherine , you were not a mistake. I don't make mistakes. I know better than you know. I'm God. And you're not. Remember that you were fearfully and wonderfully made in your mother's room and that this one, the AVM formed in your brain. There is purpose in all of this. Just wait. You'll see there's no replacing you. Jay could never ever marry a woman as amazing as you are. God said that it's true though, James cause never have a mommy like you. Think about what this will mean for his life. Mom and stroke will always be a part of his story. God's a gift to him. It will inform his life. Let them consider it pure joy as he grows. All of this will teach him beyond anything you could say or do. Trust me, I am working up everything for your good dove doubt this truth, just because you're in the darkness. Now, what's true in the light is true in the dark. You will see my goodness in the land of the living. Lean into this hope, love that teach you how special you are. Most people will never go through this kind of hell on earth. I've chosen you live a life worthy of this special calling that you've received. And for those of you who know a lot of your Bible, that's about 15 passages of scripture that just came out of me and I didn't even know I knew all those scriptures. I , um, you know, I'd walk with the Lord since I was a little girl and if the doors were open at church, I was there and I went to Christian camp , a Christian college and I guess somewhere along the lines a lot of it stuck. And then when my life blew up, even though I wanted to fall on deny that God was in this nightmare, it's like I couldn't, it was like Exodus 1414, who knows that verse that I need only be still and he would fight for me. And Romans eight 28, all things are working for God. And Psalm 27, 13, I would see the goodness in the land of the living. In Psalm one 39 I'm fearfully and wonderfully made. Like I didn't even fully know. I knew all those verses and yet swimming in my head and in my heart was just way of like , God is bigger than this and God is somehow at work in my story. And the overarching idea that still like overwhelms me to this day is that ending part of that that now in my just terrible suffering that God is. See Ephesians four one idea that God had called me to a special situation and my job was to live a life worthy of the calling I'd received and it just really shifted my perspective from like where's God, this is a mistake to like a different level of clarity that God had given me a very unique opportunity to leverage and steward well for his glory. Then my life, like the volume got turned up real lava my life. And that feeling is like invigorating. I mean bizarre . I know, but I feel like special now, most people don't live their lives in a wheelchair. If you do, if you are in a wheelchair, you get a free book, go to the book line that's free because you're awesome. My Mo , most people don't spend all their days in a wheelchair and those of us who do there are lives are elevated, people are watching in a different way and that's a very special opportunity and I think for me in that moment, I really in every moment since I can just feel God saying steward this well this is a special calling and I'm deeply encouraged me in that moment.

Speaker 2 29:15

From there there was a lot of ups and downs. You like to think you go through hard things and you get a sense of what God's doing and it's just going to be this upward trajectory. You know as if we made a deal with God as if you know our bucket lists line item for suffering. It just sort of checked off and we get to go to the vacations in Napa and next and God just says so sweetly that that's not how this life is going to . And you're going to need to find hope to continue to show up to this life that you never thought you'd be living until the day that you don't need hope anymore. Because you're face to face with hope when you see Jesus again. But until that day you get this vision of this future promise and you get to try to live it out in the present. And that's what we're all doing together. I mean, we know the end of this story, right? But we get sad and we get angry and we forget and God says, I want you to remind each other. And that's what we do when we gather together. Even now. I mean that's what this simple story of our life is about. You know, stories are really good at taking the left brain and the right brain and making them kind of come together in a way that goes beyond words sometimes. So we pray that this reminder of the gospel story, we'll remind you about something of the gospel story in your own life. But it's a miracle that you're here today, even if it feels like you're walking through hell right now, God's walking with you and there is having to come. And there's heaven right now in the midst of it too. And our life has continued to have struggle and suffering and opportunities to doubt and be afraid. But God is saying, I'm not just come so that you can stop hurting. But I've come so that you can know the healer of the world. And that's me. I'm not just come to give you this life you think you're entitled to now that you've been through so much. But I've come to let you know the giver of every good and perfect gift in the world that has me a relationship with me is what I'm giving you. But I'm gonna need you to open your hands and now you could receive me even more. So that is our calling today friends that God has given us so that we can give away. He's given us hope. He's given us comfort, like it says in second Corinthians not so we can be comfortable and hopeful in ourselves, but so we can be conduits of that to give it away to a world that is on the precipice of despair. So we call it hoping it forward and I would just challenge you in your own life. What have you been given that God is calling you to give away to somebody else whose place of wounding can be a place of new healing for you? Um , you know , we've had to go back to the places that have really hurt us and really been a part of the hard places in our story and taken a message of hope back to those very places that we really don't want to go back to. And we have found healing there as somebody else has found healing too. And so that's our charges. We leave this place and you can tell the last until the last little bit,

Speaker 3 32:16

so no one's seemed me. Um , early on after the stroke capable of having another baby, it's wasn't on the radar. Having have 11 surgeries since the stroke and loads and loads of therapies and all kinds of things. But in 2014, God opened this window for me to get pregnant and then have a second baby in the of 2015 John nester was mourn . And John, for those of you who know the meaning of the name John, it means the Lord has been gracious and he has been so gracious. And John's Mughal named Nestor is for my neurosurgeon, Nestor Gonzales , um, whose life's work is giving second chances to patients online . Me and the name Nesser, which we didn't know at the time, means homecoming remembrance and seeker of miracles. And we just feel like such a cool Godwin that , um, his name and seeker of miracles and our purse , whenever someone asks the origin of John's nontraditional middle name , um, he'd have a chance to tell his story and then telling him his story that he would mare light . He would bear witness to darkness and light and the life after death and that his little flesh and bones , um, just showcased the gospel that , um, near death and new life and broken things. And make new things and just , um, an example, a living example of Arco and um , no, I wish you could meet him. He's making this nuts. He's three and he's crazy. He's , I guess I pray our story encourages you and we're still writing , um, Mindy Marsh chapters. Hopefully we're 36, but um, we have been filled with the hope that will not disappoint. And

Speaker 1 34:32

friends ,

Speaker 3 34:33

we're going to pray over you and for you and with you. Father, we pray second Corinthians four Lord, that even though we're hard pressed that we will not be crushed. We may be perplexed, but we are not in despair. Lord, we are sometimes persecuted but we are never a man and women struck down. We are not destroyed. Lord, we always carry in our body the death of Jesus. So then the life of Jesus might also be revealed in our body. Sword. Amen.

Speaker 1 35:09

Hey man. Hey, what do you think Jane ? Katherine , please. Thank you guys so much. Thank you. So good. Um ,

Speaker 4 35:27

you can stay standing real quick and just a minute. You can say standing there as well as at the Bethel campus. Man, I don't know you that like rocks just to that realization just even at the end. And she said it's so fast, but it's so true. Um , that God makes new things out of broken things. Some of you just need to hear that and know that for yourself, that in you and your brokenness or when it is broken again, that new things can come out. And just real quickly, you know, we say this each and every week , um, that there's parts of us that feel dead, broken , um, or lost and hope really is the answer. Just like they shared literally 30 minutes of testimony. So if you're here today and you need that hope, God makes dead things alive again, you watch some of the hardest spots of her life that she shared and it continues to have resurrects it and redeems it and makes new things. God helps find those things that are lost. If you feel lost, he can find it. And if you feel broken, he can begin to mending work that only he can do. They can't do it. God can do it and they a testimony. And so if that's you today and if you're at the Bethel location to , um , or if you're here , there's books in the lobby. Um , it's a journal. It's called this changes everything cause it doesn't, it's just like what's next steps to healing and to who Jesus is and who God is. And if you just want to explore that, we want to give this gift to you to go on that journey and then we'll follow up with you and just a couple of weeks. Um , thank you for being with us online and Beth, I'm gonna pass you actually over right now to your host at that campus and friends here. Um, they're going to be out in the lobby. Um, that's why we let them go cause they're going to be sad now. So you have an opportunity to say, Hey for like 10 seconds , um, say Hey to them and connect with them if you'd like. If this is one of your first times with this , so glad that you're here, please give us a couple of weeks, connect with us. Thank you for your generosity. This was a story this week that shows how your generosity and the way that we live generously, literally is changing people around the world , um, through distresses and dignity. And I'm so thankful to be a part of a community that's messy but can just bring hope and healing and all of those beautiful things that God does in and through us and then out to other people. I would love to send you off with a blessing, a posture just with our hands open. As we continue to kill spiders in our lives, they will continue to come up. May we just remember that Jesus is the ultimate hope that will heal any wounds caused by those things and maybe we suppress it, kill it, and claim it as gods and not its own identity as victors in our lives. I love you all. I'll see you next week.