If there’s one thing Trudy Cathy White knew in her life, it was chicken. After all, she was born the daughter of Truett and Jeannette Cathy, founders of the Chick-fil-A restaurant franchise.
Much more important than chicken, however, was a kingdom lesson she learned from her parents early on that has stuck with her for her entire life. That lesson is one of the main foundations of her new book, Climbing Every Mountain, which she discussed on a recent edition of the “Greenelines” podcast on the Charisma Podcast Network.
“It’s identity, just understanding who I am,” Cathy White says. “When I was growing up, my mom always had this habit of standing at the back door when we would leave the house. Almost without fail, she would look at us, her children, and say, ‘Now, remember not only who you are but whose you are.’
“I began to realize the key to knowing who I am is that I belong to Jesus and that He purchased me with His precious blood by dying on the cross. That made all of the difference in the world for me.”
Mountains, she says, have inspired her from the time she was very young, from the mountains of North Carolina during summer camp as a youngster to the mountains of Rio De Janeiro, where she and her husband served as missionaries.
Cathy White says she was inspired to write Climbing Every Mountain shortly after her father and mother passed away within a year of each other in 2014 and 2015. Both Truett and Jeanette Cathy were a huge spiritual influence on Cathy White and her two brothers.
“It was a really heavy time for me in my life, realizing this is a huge mountain to have lost both Mom and Dad,” Cathy White said. “It was very traumatic because of how close we all were as a family. I wanted to write a book to encourage other people to realize that we all have personal challenges … My goal was to try to inspire others to realize that, no matter what mountain you face or how steep a decline you are on, you can always find God faithful on the journey.”
