Editor’s Note: Katherine and Jay married right after college and sought adventure far from home in Los Angeles, CA. As they pursued their dreams, they planted their lives in the city and in their church community. Their son, James, came along unexpectedly in the fall of 2007, and just 6 months later, everything changed in…
Hope Heals: Life When There Should Have Been Death
Editor’s Note: Katherine and Jay were a young couple living the dream in Southern California, but all was nearly lost when Katherine suffered a shocking near-fatal brainstem stroke and struggled to find hope in a life that looked nothing like the one they had before. * * * As fall came and the California permaclimate…
Hope Heals: God Will Never Leave Us Alone
When I first woke from a sudden, near-fatal brain-stem stroke, I could hardly move, nor could I speak. I was 26 years old and instinctively wanted to nurse my six-month-old baby but could no longer hold him, much less act as his mommy. I was surrounded by doctors and nurses and loved ones constantly, but…
Called to Perseverance
For nearly ten years after my stroke, I got around being pushed in a cheap, manual wheelchair. I’ve got nothing against those. I thought it was great! The airlines treated it like the discus in a discus throw, but no matter. It did the trick. There was, however, one slight issue. The wheels didn’t exactly…
Suffer Strong: Post-Traumatic Growth
In sharing our story, we’ve given many people permission to share their stories back to us. Those stories cover all the ways a person can hurt — loss of a child, divorce, financial struggle, cancer, dysfunctional relationships, addiction — and naturally, many of them are stories similar to ours; that is, they’re related to stroke…
Hope It Forward
Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God. — 2 Corinthians 1:3-4 One ordinary day my wife…