The Wolfs Lead an Inspirational Convocation Through a Message of Hope

Liberty University welcomed to Wednesday’s Convocation Jay and Katherine Wolf, who spent their time on stage giving students a message of unwavering hope and recovery that they proclaimed is available to all through Jesus Christ.

The Wolfs’ message of hope was tied to their testimony that they shared to students at Convocation and centered around a sudden, life-altering event which would prove to shape their family’s ministry and overall outlook on life.

On April 21st, 2008, Katherine Wolf suffered a massive brain stem stroke that was caused by a genetic malformation in her brain and rendered her partially paralyzed. It was the beginning of a life-long battle for her to recover both physically and emotionally, as she struggled at first to survive and later to begin the hard work of rebuilding her life from the ground up.

“God was making a way for us in the midst of our chaos,” Jay Wolf said. “He was making order when everything else was falling apart in our lives, he was going ahead of us.”

Through their many anecdotes of struggle, the Wolfs highlighted the similarities between the tragedies they went through in their personal lives and those that students in the crowd may be facing.

“Don’t get distracted by the specifics of our story,” Katherine Wolf said. “I think that’s the temptation a lot of times, is to be like, ‘Well they’re on the stage and have this crazy story that’s not really relatable to my life or my situation.’ I would say that’s such a tragedy because we’re all living out different versions of that same picture.”

According to Jay Wolf, they were encouraged to see how members of their church of were the first to respond to their tragedy.

“So often when the bottom falls out, we want the invisible God that we love to be made visible just so we can be held by him or we can beat our hands on his chest and just say why is this happening,” Jay Wolf said. “And God says, ‘Look around, my body is here’, the invisible God is made visible when his body comes around us.”

As Katherine Wolf’s recovery journey began, Jay Wolf told students that, even though their situation seemed grim during the initial stages of Katherine’s recovery, he felt as sense of hope that he said must have been from God.

“Katherine was put on life support so her body could even relearn how to breath on its own for 40 days,” Jay Wolf said. “And what’s so powerful about that, is that it was for 40 days that God was allowing her to walk through this wilderness and saying, ‘Just because I’m silent doesn’t mean I’ve abandoned you, I’m taking you guys to something totally new.’”

The Wolfs also focused part of their time on stage to talk about their wedding that happened before Katherine Wolf’s stroke. They said the presiding pastor, Jay Wolf’s father, gave a message out of Matthew 7, where Jesus shares a parable about how building one’s house on sand allows the house to fall when a storm comes, but building one’s house on rock allows it to hold strong in the storms of life.

According to Jay Wolf, his father’s advice to prepare for the “storms of life” seemed out of place at their wedding, but he said he remembered this advice during Katherine’s stroke and recovery, and that message helped the Wolf family to face their storm they did not see coming.

Although tragedy had struck the Wolf family in a totally unforeseen way, they said that by embracing God’s plan for their life, that they were always able to thrive in times of hardship. They encouraged students to do the same

“In the wounding there can come tremendous healing,” Katherine Wolf said.

Katherine Wolf also came back to Liberty’s weekly Campus Community event later on Wednesday evening to expound upon her message of hope for students. She challenged students to change their perspective of what is “good,” saying that even though people may think her situation during recover was never “good,” that she was always able to find happiness throughout her trials.

The Wolfs also stayed after Campus Community was over to meet with students and to sign copies of their book, called “Hope Heals,” that was published in April 2016.