ALS, Marriage and a Deeper Faith: Stories of Hope with Cathy Bennett

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What if the hardest season of your life became the place where wonder returned, marriage deepened, and purpose took root? That’s the heart of our conversation with caregiver and author Cathy Bennett, who spent nine years walking alongside her husband Michael through ALS—and found a new kind of faith and community in the process.

We open with the practical realities few outsiders see: the wheelchair, the Hoyer lift, the accessible van, the heavy “operator” tasks you never trained for but learn because love insists. Then we sit with the isolation that caregiving often creates—especially when a pandemic narrows your world—and we name why generic advice isn’t enough. Cathy explains how faith and solidarity among caregivers change the emotional math, easing the bitterness that can grow when you carry the load alone. She shares a powerful arc of belief as Michael, a lifelong tinkerer and nature buff, reconnects with God through the complexity and design he saw on screen. Along the way, marriage is reshaped by humility and gratitude; two driven people learn surrender and find their bond unexpectedly better, not smaller.

There are vivid moments of provision—a long-stalled cabin sale clearing the way to build an accessible home at exactly the right time—and there’s the quieter provision of a new calling. Cathy begins to write in the margins of caregiving, eventually crafting a devotional organized around fifty emotions caregivers know by heart. She launches a faith-based caregiver community where short devotions and prayer meet the needs of time-pressed listeners, offering daily encouragement without fluff. We also get practical: how to invite people into your real life so they can truly help, why worship music can reset the hardest hour of the day, and how to “tighten the loop between guilt and grace” after inevitable slip-ups.

If you’re caring for a spouse, parent, or friend—or supporting someone who is—you’ll find a rich mix of story, strategy, and hope. Subscribe, share this episode with a caregiver who needs strength for today, and leave a review to help others discover these stories of faith, resilience, and real-world care.