At first glance, our story seems exceptional. Without warning, our lives took a detour so sharp and unexpected that few people should be able to relate. Katherine now lives with disabilities, and we've earned hard won wisdom that seeminly places us in a category of our own. But if we've learned anything in our second-chance life, it's that the most personal stories are actually the most universal.

Who among us feels fully free, even when he can walk on his own? Who feels truly beautiful, even when her face is not paralyzed? Who feels completely understood, even without a speech impairment? The answer is a resounding no one. We are all disabled. Some of our "wheelchairs" are simply on the inside instead of the outside.

If you have a pulse, you have problems and you have pain. But you also have a purpose that is simultaneously good and hard. When we choose to embrace the lives we’re living this very day and release the lives we wished for, we can know in our deepest places that this good story is being written by a God who can’t write any other kind of story. Living the good/hard life means we no longer need to numb ourselves to the difficult and the dark. We can awaken to the broken-down, miraculous nature of our second-chance lives and begin this very day to live them well to the very end.

At Hope Heals, our God-given, good/hard work is to share what we've learned through a life we never imagined living: suffering is not the end of your story. It's the beginning of a new one. And we're writing our stories together.