Katherine Wolf - Suffer Strong: How to Survive Anything by Redefining Everything

Its possible for your pain to propel you to a place of wholeness rather than defeat. With humor and deep wisdom, Katherine and Jay share lessons that have been won through extreme hardship but that are universally applicable to anyones story of pain. This book is worth every minute of your time.

TIM TEBOW, former NFL quarterback, current professional baseball player, and author of Through My Eyes and Shaken

The space between what you want and what you get is called unmet expectations. Life didnt turn out like youd hoped? It didnt for Katherine and Jay. Reading their story will help you understand yours. This is a profound and surprisingly happy book. Please read it.

MAX LUCADO, pastor and bestselling author of How Happiness Happens

Trust the voices that have been tested. Because those whove been tested speak truth that can be trusted. Katherine and Jay Wolf have been tested, and they speak what is tried and trueand absolutely transformative. Hold this catalytic book gentlybecause once you read it, you will be forever changed. Because you arent holding ideas about how to endure sufferingyou are holding igniting hope that every single one of us needs: the tried, tested, true, and proven way through hard seasons, as told by brave survivors-thrivers who actually, daily, literally, incarnate the truth about how to suffer strong.

ANN VOSKAMP,New York Times bestselling author of The Broken Way and One Thousand Gifts

Incredible people who together are a mighty force, Katherine and Jay have a special place in our hearts. Their story isnt what they thought life would be like, but they have beenas a familya pillar of what it looks like to suffer strong. They inspire us every day to live and love and to walk and weep with the strength of God in our spine. As you take the next steps in learning how to suffer strong, you will see God refine broken pieces in your life and unlock power like you have never experienced before. This broken piece is your microphone for all that God wants to do in you and through you, and we believe it will be beautiful.

LEVI AND JENNIE LUSKO, lead pastors of Fresh Life Church

There is a powerful credibility found in the words of this remarkable couple as they point us to the One theyve grown to know through the fire. With humor and honesty, Katherine and Jay each use their unique voice to help us reconcile what we all wrestle with in this lifeGods goodness and human suffering. Suffer Strong will make you laugh and think, and itll hopefully leave you more equipped to see how God so sovereignly redeems our suffering.

MAYA MOORE, four-time WNBA champion, two-time Olympic gold medalist, and advocate for redeeming our criminal justice system

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ZONDERVAN

Suffer Strong

Copyright 2020 by Katherine Wolf and Jay Wolf

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ISBN 978-0-310-34457-5 (hardcover)

ISBN 978-0-310-35819-0 (audio)

Epub Edition December 2019 978-0-310-34459-9 (ebook)

All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from The Holy Bible, New International Version, NIV. Copyright 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.Zondervan.com. The NIV and New International Version are trademarks registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office by Biblica, Inc.

Scripture quotations marked ESV are taken from the ESV Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version). Copyright 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

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The authors are represented by the literary agency of Alive Literary Agency, www.aliveliterary.com.

Cover design: Curt Diepenhorst

Cover photo: Cameron Powell

Interior design: Kait Lamphere

Printed in the United States of America

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For all the broken bodies, broken
brains, and broken hearts...
there is MORE.

CONTENTS

Have you ever met people you knew would change your whole life? When we sat on stage with Katherine and Jay for the first time at Passion 2017, thats the sense we had. We believed a seismic shift was about to happennot just for that moment, in the lives of the fifty thousand people who surrounded the platform, but through that moment as a generation was going to be changed. And thats exactly what happened.

It wasnt the first time Katherine and Jay had been at a Passion gathering. Several years before, at Passion 2013, their lives had been greatly impacted by the reality that their suffering could and would be used for Gods glory. They were experiencing a glorious rebirth rooted in the staggering reality that there was purpose in their pain. Now, four years later, they were speaking at the same event in the very same stadium, powerfully sharing their journey through suffering and lossnot as victims, but as those who were overcoming through the power of God.

We have met few people like our friends Katherine and Jay. In spite of their circumstances, they continue to defiantly choose joy. Katherine is one of the most positive, hopeful, and encouraging people on the planet. Not to mention, she is tough! Who else has had a brain stem stroke that left them partially paralyzed and in a wheelchair, and yet still insists on standing when they pray at church? And who can fully describe the servant-hearted kindness and leadership of Jay Wolf? On their own, they are magnificent, but together, they are a mighty force for the kingdom of God.

We believe God is using Katherine and Jay in extraordinary ways to reshape the lens through which people view their suffering and pain. They are disrupting the deep lie that a pain-free life is the only life where there is joy, flipping the view that God only works and brings about good where there is an absence of hardship and suffering.

We see in Scripture that God has a track record of taking the way things are and turning them upside down. From the very start of creation, God took what was formless and empty and spoke light into the darkness. In an instant, He set a precedent that would weave throughout Scripture: that with God, not only is transformation possible, but it is also His purpose. Weakness becomes strength. Defeat becomes victory. Death becomes life. He is the God of redemption, and He does this in the granular and the great, in the details of our lives, and in the eternal destiny of our souls. Jesus changes everything.