What if trusting God doesn’t mean knowing everything will turn out the way you want—but believing He will be with you no matter what happens?

Episode Summary

How do you keep trusting God when life changes in an instant?

Wendy Keating knows what it means to walk through unimaginable hardship. While still grieving the deaths of her husband and sister and recovering from major surgeries, Wendy stepped into a small hole in her backyard. What seemed like a minor injury eventually led to multiple surgeries and the devastating news that her leg would need to be amputated.

Yet when Wendy received that news, she experienced something she didn’t expect: peace. She believed God had either allowed this to happen or had a purpose in it—and she trusted that somehow He would bring blessing from what she was facing.

In this powerful conversation, Wendy and Willow talk about what it actually looks like to trust God when circumstances are painful and completely outside of our control. Wendy shares the very real challenges of learning to live independently after losing her leg—from navigating her home in a wheelchair to figuring out how to cook, clean, climb stairs, and accomplish everyday tasks in entirely new ways.

But Wendy’s story isn’t about pretending hardship is easy. She experienced frustration, loneliness, depression, and moments when she needed help. What carried her was a deep trust that God was still present and the love of friends and family who surrounded her when she couldn’t do everything on her own.

Wendy also shares how a pivotal moment years earlier prepared her for this season. When her daughter was critically ill, Wendy had to decide whether she could truly surrender the outcome to God—even if His answer wasn’t the one she desperately wanted. That decision became a turning point in her faith and taught her what it means to trust God with the story He is writing.

If you’re walking through a season you never would have chosen, Wendy’s story is a beautiful reminder that the darkness doesn’t get the final word. We can choose to keep moving, receive the love God sends through others, and trust Him one day at a time.

Meet Wendy Keating

Wendy Keating is a mom, grandma, great-grandma, former kindergarten teacher, and former Commissioner of Labor for the state of Montana. She’s also a lifelong fighter whose faith, resilience, humor, and determination have carried her through incredible loss and unexpected hardship.

After losing her leg, Wendy has had to relearn how to navigate much of everyday life—but she refuses to let what she has lost define what she believes is still possible.

Key Takeaways

• When you don’t know what comes next: Trusting God doesn’t require knowing the outcome. Wendy shares how surrendering what she couldn’t control gave her freedom from constantly fearing what might happen.
• When your circumstances have completely changed: Start with acceptance. You may not be able to change what happened, but you can begin discovering how to live within what is true today.
• When you’re tempted to isolate: Let people love you. Wendy learned that receiving help isn’t weakness—it can be one of the ways we experience God’s love.
• When someone you love is hurting: Show up. Bring dinner, call, visit, send a card, or offer practical help. Small acts can communicate tremendous love.
• When something feels impossible: Focus on what you can do and take the next step—even if you have to find an entirely different way to get there.
• When you’re waiting for circumstances to improve: Remember that hardship is a season. Wendy held onto the belief that even the worst moments would not last forever.
• When independence keeps you from receiving: Allow others the joy of helping you. God’s love often comes to us through the people He places around us.

How This Episode Will Encourage You

Wendy’s story isn’t an invitation to pretend everything is okay when it isn’t. It’s an invitation to believe that hard circumstances don’t have to steal your hope.

You can grieve what you’ve lost and still believe something good lies ahead. You can feel frustrated and still take the next step. You can need help and still be strong. And you can surrender what you cannot control while trusting that God is still writing your story.

As Wendy says, trusting God is a choice. Sometimes we have to decide again and again: “I trusted You. I’m going to trust You.”

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Welcome to the Collide Podcast. We're a growing community of everyday chicks colliding with Jesus in our mess, our pain, our joy, and our stories.

We value showing up as we truly are.

So that's what you'll find here, walls and masks being torn down so that we can allow Jesus to meet us where we truly are and hear about other women doing the same. We can't wait to collide with you.

I do trust him, and I think that's, you know, it's easy to say trust God, but the fact is, when you do trust him and when you let yourself trust him, you're not afraid of what's going to happen and what's next. And I think there's great comfort in that.

Welcome to the Collide Podcast. I'm Willow Weston, the founder and director of Collide, and I am so excited today to have Wendy Keating on.

Wendy is a mom, a grandma, and a great grandma. Wendy started her professional life as a kindergarten teacher and ended her career as the commissioner of labor for the state of Montana.

She has been a fighter her entire life and currently fights a battle that a lot of us might surrender fighting. She's the mom of Tammy, who's an amazing woman on our Clyde ministry team and has served faithfully with us for years.

And I've had the great privilege of hearing Wendy's incredible story, and today you'll get to hear it. So, Wendy, welcome to the podcast. Thanks for coming on and sharing your story.

Thanks, Willow.

I'm glad to be here. Yeah, it's awesome. Can you share how your current hardship that you're facing came to be sure.

Well, I have to say I was just in the midst of recovering from the loss of my husband and the loss of my sister and two major surgeries and just, you know, a cadre of issues that kind of was overwhelming me. But I had a. I. I lost my leg. And I didn't know it, but I stepped in a hole in my backyard, and the.

The hole wasn't very deep, but it hurt my leg, and I didn't think anything of it. What I didn't know is that I had cracked my tibia, and I walked on it for about four months.

So I was having pain in the leg, and I was going to the doctor, and I had a bursa sac on my kn.

And I thought that that was something that was causing pain in my lower leg, which was starting to swell, and the bursal sack got big and that was aspirated, and my leg didn't get better. So one day I'm just trying to walk around the house and I couldn't walk. I just couldn't step on it. So I got a walker out of my garage and.

And started hopping around in my house thinking, well, I probably should go to the doctor. And I ended up in the ER because I couldn't walk. And they put me in the hospital for a possible infection in my leg.

And I stayed in the hospital for days with seven doctors and every test in the book. And they sent me home. I could not walk, but they couldn't find anything wrong. What I also didn't know is that they only looked at my knee.

And not one doctor looked or took a test on my lower leg, which was very swollen and red.

So about four days after I got home, I, you know, walked into the bathroom to get a drink of water at about 5:30 one morning, and my leg crumbled under me. So I had an emergency surgery and I went to rehab after that and was ready to walk again. And my legs started kind of hurting me again.

So I ended up back in surgery. The doctor went in and found out that all the bones were dead in my leg and told me I had to, they would have to take it off.

So then I had my fifth surgery in about 14 months and they amputated my leg. And, you know, that's kind of the beginning of that story.

Wendy, this is just crazy story. I mean, you. You stepped in a hole in your backyard, which feels like something we could all do.

And, and then, you know, you felt pain and you went to the doctors and it sounds like they didn't look at your entire leg. And, and then here you are, surgeries later, and they give you the news that they have to amputate your leg.

When the doctor delivered that news, what were your initial thoughts?

Well, when I woke up after the surgery, the fourth surgery, the doctor was sitting on a stool next to me, and he, you know, gave me the news very gently, very, very caring. And he, he had been my surgeon. So he said to me, but I can't take it off. I am. Am leaving tomorrow to take my wife to Europe for her 40th birthday.

And his partner would do it. Well, that was okay. But when he said that, I'm thinking, oh, well, I don't know her. I was worried about who the doctor was.

But my doctor was apologizing for it, the surgeon. And my first thought was, it's okay. I'll be okay.

And of course, I was, you know, in the, in the recovery room at the time so I could have been medicated. But I'll tell you, I said to.

Me.

That he was so sorry and he was so upset that that actually worried me because I really liked him. The next morning, I was. They. They were going to take off the next day.

The next morning I woke up and the surgeon had come back before on his way to the airport. And he said, you know, I couldn't sleep all night. I just didn't know what went wrong.

And he said, but, Wendy, I really think you're going to be better off because you could have had drop foot from that, you know, former surgery. And he said, you know, you would have pain all your life in this leg.

And so he told me that he thought, you know, it really wasn't a bad option because I would be able to walk again. And things I do everything I could do now, but.

Or before, but it would be, it would be different and just hard work ahead, but I would still be better off. And, you know, he seemed to feel better about it. But the strangest thing for me was I had this calm, peaceful, not worrying response to it.

And it surprised me. And I know that after surgery I kept thinking, God, you either, you know, wanted this to happen or allowed this to happen.

I, I just knew that he was going to bless that somehow. And I, I know that, I know that he does that. So I just took it a day at a time.

It was like, I have to do that and it's okay because he's going to bring blessings to this. And so I was kind of anticipating, you know, what would those blessings be? But I didn't. Don't know. But I did believe he would, and he did.

Well, it sounds like you've experienced, you know, scripture says that there's a peace that transcends our understanding. It sounds like right away the Lord sort of granted you this piece that it doesn't even make sense that you would have that.

Exactly. And, you know, admittedly, I didn't know what I was in for, but, you.

Know, yeah, you came home and you hit. You were walking through the grief of losing your husband and you came home to a house alone, and now your leg's been amputated.

I mean, invite us into everything that changed for you on just a practical level.

Oh, yeah. Well, it is everything.

You know, the thing is that after the, after the initial, you know, pain and therapy and then you kind of get in a mode where you get therapy and some kind of therapy, but there are waiting periods too, because they wait for you to Heal. And to get to a certain point, I didn't have a leg prosthetic for quite a while, several months, and. But it was.

In the first place, I went home alone.

But I did have friends who came and actually ministered to me in both in terms of faith and in terms of, you know, that sort of support to get me settled in so that I could move forward. So I had about a week of having somebody there, and it was a matter of looking at everything was a challenge.

And there's a little bit of excitement in there because if I could figure out how to vacuum the floor, for instance, then it was a sense of accomplishment. So every little thing I had to do, I had to do from the wheelchair.

And then I, through therapy, could start standing on my one leg and leaning against something or like the kitchen counters or something and trying to do a task. I couldn't cook because if a pan was heavy, I couldn't carry it. But I. I'd figure out, well, if I have to cook this, then I don't.

I can leave the pan, for instance, till gets cold, and take food out of the pan at the stove, and I don't have to move it. And, you know, with little things like that. And so if you can't, you know, I had to reach her. Grab her little device to. To reach up high.

And I. I learned that I couldn't reach up and get a box of something off a high shelf because it'd fall on my head. And so I. I was able to get some of that food down low.

And my son came with his staff, and they rearranged my house so that I could get through with my wheelchair, the furniture, or they moved my dishes down to a lower cupboard. And, you know, it's just.

Just look at things as, like, there is a way to do them, but, oh, God, help me figure this one out, because I can't, and I need to do this. And so I don't know. No, I. I just had faith that I could do it, and that if I couldn't, then.

Then I just pray that God would help me figure it out or deal with it or accept it. And, you know, the thing is, Willow, I think the first step is acceptance. And once that happens, it must be a bell curve or something.

You go through stages. You just accept things, but you can't do them all at once.

You know, you have to get to that point and start accepting your situation, and then, you know, living with it. I. I don't think that it's. It's Lonely to do it. You. You're alone because nobody else can experience your pain. But I'll tell you what is.

Was most important to me was having the support of friends and being surrounded with love, you know, with. With my son or daughter, with my. With my Bible study group, with my friends. And I just. That love pouring out was crucial to.

To me being able to accept and live with, you know, a situation that was so different. And I have a true. I have trouble with accepting help, you know, a little too independent, according to my daughter.

But I. I don't think that I could have really kept going or. Or had, you know, the. The belief that. That it was going to be all right if I didn't have God's love through all these people coming at me.

And it was overwhelming. But had I not been surrounded that way, I think it would have been much more difficult.

What were some of the practical ways they showed you love? Because I think about, you know, all of us listening, who we want to be those people.

We want to show up for people when they need it and help make it through hardship. And sometimes we're at a loss for. For what to do. What were some of the practical things that people stepped in and did for you to show love?

Well, to start with, everybody brought food, and most of them brought stew. So I think practically don't bring stew because I had about 30 helpings of stew in my freezer.

Was this like, do they eat, like, bear meat stew or.

In Montana, we make stew out of bison and elk and.

Exactly. Here in the Pacific Northwest, it's mostly beef stew. So, y', all, we need to start making bison stew to help heal people.

So people brought you food and what else. What are some of the other things they did?

They brought food. They came to visit, and my Bible study group got together, and this was just so exciting. They got together and made what they called friendship bags.

You actually can buy a bag that says friendship bags. And they filled it with everything under the sun. You know, a special blanket, food, books, notepads, face notes. And they just. It was.

Well, I had two big bags. It was like Christmas. And it was. They had so much fun doing it, and I had so much fun getting it that it was something that kind of drew us together.

They would come to visit. They. They split up and would come in twos, and everybody that came brought dinner. And they brought, not just stew. They brought, you know, the salad.

They brought the makings of. Of dinner and. And would come and visit. And those visits were pretty important because I got to know them in a deeper sense.

I did share with many of my friends that my daughter said to me in the very beginning, let people help you. If you don't, you're taking their joy away. And I'm cognizant that. That. That love that comes through them is God's love.

And when she said that, I was, you know, kind of ashamed of myself because I was trying to do everything myself and thinking I needed to, and I didn't. And, you know, I. I know that people liked doing it.

And so the meals, the little gifts, the visits, the phone calls, I got cards, every bit of that made me feel loved. And, you know, I didn't have to isolate myself from everyone in order to get better.

And the fact is, I knew it was going to get better in the worst of times. I knew that it was not going to last. It'll get better little by little. So I have a prosthesis, but I can't walk yet.

And a lot of people would be able to walk at this point, but my age and the fact that I had previous surgeries and wasn't up and around, you know, it's going to take longer, but I. It's okay. I'm getting. I get frustrated at times, and I. I got to the point where I was very depressed and.

But I wasn't thinking bad thoughts, and it confused me because I didn't know why I would be depressed if I were, you know, I. I was thinking positive things and. But I think that's a chemical, you know, reaction of my body to this, to the stress. I.

Doctor gave me pills and I got better, but it's, you know, you can't say you. You're not going to. I thought I was fine, and so I didn't understand how I could be depressed.

But I did learn that there is a different kind of depression, you know, than anything I've ever experienced.

You have such an inspiring attitude, Wendy, and one that, I mean, you had this attitude when so many people would go to a place of questioning, you know, why God, did you allow this to happen? Or being angry at the medical staff for not recognizing it sooner. And now you don't have your leg.

You know, there's people who might go to the place of feeling sorry for themselves and pity and deep grief and depression and all of these things. And I. Your attitude is inspiring me and even kind of kicking my butt over here.

When I think about, you know, those moments where I'm in a fight with my teenager, I lose my keys, I'M late for a meeting and I have no gas. Like, I can't even pull out your attitude for those, let alone the hardship that you face to.

I'm just kind of curious, you know, because I think about people who are facing hardship right now and they have those bad days, and maybe it is hard for them to stay positive and keep the faith. Why do you think you've been able to still hold on to hoping in God in the midst of all this? What is it that's kept you out of complete despair?

Well, you know, to start with, I, I never doubted that he was there and it was, it was going to be okay.

I mean, I, I do trust him, and I think that's, you know, it's easy to say trust God, but the fact is, when you do trust him and when you let yourself trust him, you're not afraid of, you know, what's going to happen and, or, you know, what's next. And I think there's great comfort in that. But getting to the point where you can say, okay, I will.

I'm willing, I have the will to trust you, Lord, then I won't be afraid. And, you know, I know you're with me. I, you know, faith is so powerful.

I don't know that I would have had this 10 years ago, you know, handle as well or, or.

But my faith has grown so much in the last 10 years that I just, you know, you share that with other people and, and you're confirmed, and it's just Jesus walking with you. I don't know. You know, the other thing is, I, I, I know that the darkness doesn't prevail. I know that it's, it will be over.

No, I lived in the, in this, in the 60s with the Vietnam War and the, you know, and all of the changes that were taking place in society and, and, you know, there was great change there, and some of it wasn't good change. So it was hard for people going through that. And, you know, we survived that. We'll survive, Covid. We'll survive whatever happens to us.

It's just a matter of you choose. You choose how you want to look at it. You choose how you want to deal with it.

Let's talk about that for a second.

I mean, do you feel like you've experienced things in your past that have prepared you not only for this hardship, but also that have built your trust in God where you're able to not be afraid even when you're looking at not having one of your limbs?

Yes, absolutely. I You know, I had a tough growing up and I, my mom tried to raise four of us kids, a lot of alcoholism in my family. We were very poor.

But, you know, my father was abusive, very abusive, and it was just physically. But I don't think we started out real healthy.

But, you know, I wondered why as going through life that things were good, you know, I mean, in general, as I grew up, life was good and it was good in spite of the fact that, you know, my father tried to kill all of his kids and they drug him off and, you know, as a drunk and, and it's just, well, like you learn that it doesn't the sum of your experiences make you who you are. And I grew up, we grew up saying prayers. We didn't know Jesus.

And so as you grow older and it becomes more important that there were so many times I thought, oh, gee, you know, try to make a deal with God. And he didn't have, he wasn't going to do it, you know, because I needed to go through it.

So I just, time after time during life, I went through a divorce.

I, I, I had a baby out of wedlock when I was 16 and, and gave it up for adoption, which, you know, was, it remains painful your whole life, but, but you go on. And I have two beautiful children. I wouldn't, I appreciate.

And I thank God for I, in times when my daughter was very ill. And I just, I think a turning point in my life, Willow, was when Tammy was ill and in critical care and we weren't sure she was going to live. And I gave it up to God.

And that, that, that doing that one thing was probably the most significant moment of my life because I was afraid, I was afraid for her, but I gave it up to him and I, and of course she survived. And now she's kind of mothers me, but she is, you know, an incredible daughter. And I just, I just thank God for, you know, the grace of faith.

Let's enter in to that a little bit. You, when you say Tammy was really ill and you were afraid for her and you had to give that up to God, and that was a turning point in your faith.

Invite us into one. How old were you at this point, but also giving it up to God? I mean, I think about some people, they don't really understand.

Well, what does that mean, you gave that up to God? You said a prayer in the hospital is that you surrendered to his will. What does that exactly mean that was a turning point in your faith?

Well, I got a phone call from her husband that, you know, things were turning bad. And he asked me to come up to. Up to Bellingham from. From Montana. And I knew. I knew that now that there was a possibility she wasn't going to make it.

So I. All. I remember walking out on my deck. It was a cold night with lots of stars and praying. And then I was thinking as I was praying that I need.

Can I give this up? Because what if she doesn't make it? You know, what if I give this up and God lets her die?

And, you know, all of that was going through my mind, and I came to the point where I knew I had to make a decision. Was I going to let go and trust God or not? And did I really believe or didn't I?

And all of this was just going through my mind, and I made a decision. I just said, you know, I'm giving this to you. I trust you. No matter what you decide, you know, I'm. I trust you. And you. It's yours. It's. It's not mine.

I. I'm here. But that was it. You know, I said it. I said the words out loud, and. And I.

And the next day, as I was flying over to Seattle, I thought, well, you know, I started worrying again, like, no, I can't do this. I. I trusted you. I'm going to trust you, God. So I think it was the decision, you know, I had to make. It was believer or wasn't I?

You know, I can't pick and choose what I'm going to believe. I. I believed it, and that's what happened.

You know, it's so interesting because in scripture, you know, we have been invited into praying, like Jesus, not your will be done, not my will be done, but yours. And that whole surrendering to trusting God for his, the story he's writing in our lives, not the story we're writing.

It's really easy for so many of us to trust God when things are going good. It's a whole nother thing to trust God when things aren't going good.

I remember my mom was in the hospital a few years back for 30 days, and they asked me to bring the power of attorney papers. And I had been kind of living in this hospital in another town than where I actually live.

And I went to get some coffee, just, like, get out of the hospital for 30 minutes, and I got lost on a country road. And I remember just driving and weeping and just saying, like, God, I'm gonna trust you for the story.

For I'm gonna trust that you're writing the best story, and I don't get to choose how this story goes. And that was a moment kind of like you're describing, where, you know, I have no control over this anyways.

But fighting to try to control it is not helping, you know, and so there's these moments of surrender.

And I think when we start to engage relationship with God in that way where we trust him for the best ultimate story over the course of the whole journey, it changes our perspective in things. Instead of fighting him, we're kind of allowing him to move and allowing his will to be done. And I love. I love your attitude. You inspire me so much.

One of the things that I love about you and Tammy is that you guys have such a great sense of humor. And when you share stories about what your life looks like now, they sound so incredibly hard. But you also find ways to laugh about it.

And one of those stories, I'm wondering if you might want to share it, but there's some story about you learning how to climb stairs and mop and vacuum floors in a wheelchair. And I know you guys have some funny ones. I don't know if you want to share any.

Well, it's. It's not dignified. But I. I went to my. I went to my cabin, and it has, you know, a staircase that's beautiful. It's half logs and.

And the bedroom is up there. It's kind of a loft bedroom with bedroom suite. And I went to the cabin and planned on staying in this little room, little extra room we have.

And I just kept looking up the stairs and looking. I didn't have a leg or anything yet. And I finally decided, I know I can get up there. I know I can get up there and sleep up there. And.

And so I. I just sat down on the bottom stairs and just lifted myself up step by step, got up to the top of the stairs. I'm so proud of myself. And I realized, what do I do now? I'm sitting on the top step, but I can't go any further. I don't have any.

I mean, I don't have my chair. So I went down and I got this aluminum walker that I could hop on.

And so I took it upstairs, and then I get it to the top of the stairs, and I have no idea how I'm going to get up on it because I can't get up on one leg.

And so then I just scooted into the bedroom and found a couch I could take the pillows off and climb on and then put pillows kind of behind me and climb up a little bit more to the. To the arm of the chair and get on the walker. And so they laughed at me, kind of. I just scooted around the house, on the stairs, around the upstairs.

But I was happy. I was perfectly happy.

You say that isn't dignified, but that's amazing, you know.

You know, scoot on your rump across the floor.

It's.

That's. I'm 75 years old. It can't be a pretty picture.

But, Wendy, I think so many people would look up at their beautiful loft bedroom in their cabin in the. In Yellowstone, which is where it is, and they would be sad, and they would grieve that they once used to be able to walk up the flight of stairs.

Stairs without giving it a second thought. And they would think, I cannot make it back up those stairs ever again. But you did not let that thought enter your mind.

You actually tried on your own, step by step, with the strength that you had to make it up there. And then you got up there and realized you didn't have what you needed.

You scooted all the way back down, got a tool that you needed, and went all the way back up. Most people wouldn't try. What. Like, what is it in you that. That gives you that fight that you're willing to.

To fight to get back to being able to do the things that you love doing?

Well, I don't know. I don't know the answer to that. I just believe I can do whatever I need to do. I mean, I. It's not like I don't get frustrated.

And, you know, I bump into walls with my wheelchair all the time, and I'm gonna have to repaint all my baseboard. But it's a matter of, you know, there is frustration in it. But, you know, I growl a lot, and I just. I don't believe there's much I can't do. I can't.

I can't. I just can't reach high places. And that's about it. Like, floor easily in a wheelchair might be easier than standing.

You know, you just have to navigate your wheelchair. But I don't want this. I don't want to live in this wheelchair much longer.

When you think about women listening, because I think a lot of us.

And I'll just speak for myself, but I think a lot of times I spend more time ruminating on what I'm incapable of doing, how it's impossible, how I don't have what it takes. I'm not very strong. How, you know, other people can do it, but I can't do it. I spent a lot of time in that place.

When you think about women who are not believing they have the ability to do the thing that they want to do, what would you say to them?

I would say that they need to trust in themselves. And it's a matter of will. It's a choice they can make to do or not to do.

So they need to know that it isn't that they can't do it, it's that they may not will to do it. And it's a decision they can make. It's believing in themselves, I think, and. And trusting that they can do it.

And heck, say a prayer and, you know, say a prayer and go for it. They have nothing to lose. No, we don't have anything to lose if we. If we try. But it is a choice, and the choice is ours.

It reminds me of the collision in the New Testament where Jesus shows up on the scene of the guy who's waiting for healing, and he's waiting to get down to these waters that he thinks will heal him. Right? I'm sure you've heard the story. And Jesus is standing there.

The ultimate healer is standing in his presence, and the ultimate healer is listening to him. This guy is saying, what? I can't get down to these waters. And, you know, if only. I'm thinking like, if only only this guy knew.

Like you're healer standing in front of you, but you're spending so much time talking about how you can't get down to these waters that are going to heal you.

And a lot of us do that, where we're spending so much time thinking about how what we want is out of our control and we're helpless and what can we possibly do? And Jesus turns to the guy and he says, do you want to get well? And he uses this word.

And I'm not a Greek scholar, but I've learned from smart people that the word means. The word do you want? That Jesus uses is the word philo. And it means not only having a desire, but a willingness to do the work to get well.

And I think what you're talking about is not just wanting something, but like leaning in with a will to make what you want actually happen. And you see this beautiful collision where Jesus, you know, tells this guy, you're going to have to move. Pick up your man, move.

And this guy who'd been stuck there for forever gets up and moves and he experiences healing. And I love that story because I think God invites us into Healing all the time, but it actually requires that we do something, that we move, that we.

That we lean in with a willingness. And your story exemplifies that in such a beautiful way.

You could have gotten so stuck and so down and so despairing, but you continue to lean in with this strength. And I just want to be like you when I grow up.

Thank you.

When you think about. And this is.

I have two more questions for you before we close, but when you think about going back to the week before you stepped into that hole and you got this injury, and now going through all of this and having this experience, you've been stripped of so many things.

If you look back and you could talk to that past self and tell her what you've learned, that you wish she would have known, then what would you say to her?

I would tell her that.

That she needed to accept love from other people, and it was okay not to refuse out of a sense of independence, what other people wanted to do, to love her. I. That's a huge learning for me. I don't think I understood that. People need to love, and I needed to accept.

Was very easy for me to isolate myself in terms of just my life. I get. I didn't. I didn't need anybody, and I. I do need. I need everybody.

I need all their love because I've experienced it at such a level that I want to love them back. And, you know, I just. I struggled with that. But I also, you know, have learned that God's love comes, you know, complete through other people.

And that's part of why he said, you know, love others as yourself. But it. It brings me joy now to let people help me.

And I'm not, you know, I. I'm basically still independent, but I. I just see people's willingness to give, and it's beautiful. It's just a beautiful part of life. I just say that beauty in other people because it's God in them. You know, it's just right.

I love how you. You say expect love because that's God coming our way. He's using other people to do it. And I love that that's what you tell your.

Your past self, and we can all tell ourselves that today. Well, Wendy, thank you so much for sharing your faith, your hope, your courage with us today. And I know that it's inspiring mine and so many others.

And so I'm just glad that we got to hang out and have you on the podcast.

Thanks, Will. I was glad to be here.

For those of you listening, may you continue to run into Jesus. May you seek him for your perspective, for your healing, for your hope, and for your faith.

And if you don't have those things, the cool thing about Jesus is you can just tell him you don't have them and ask him to give you faith when you doubt, to give you strength when you feel weak, to give you hope when you feel hopeless. And he will give you those things. Keep colliding, friends, and we'll catch you next week.

Thanks for tuning in to keep up with us.

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