It’s said it’s best to never meet your heroes. But Joni Eareckson Tada is different.
I first heard Joni speak once I was 15 years old, sitting within the balcony level of the Waterfront Hall in Belfast. I had heard her story from my mom. I had watched the movie about her life. I knew that she had been in a wheelchair for a long time as the results of a teenage diving accident. I had examine how she continued to follow Jesus, sharing the gospel and serving others. Now here she was, in my little home city. I used to be struck by how much joy she had within the Lord despite every part she faced every single day. It was a special night.
I wouldn’t meet Joni for one more decade, after we were introduced at a conference in Nashville. Right away, she set me relaxed, expressing real interest in my work. As soon as she could, she gathered some people around and commenced to guide us in hymns. I’ve come to understand that this was a really “Joni thing” to do; I don’t remember a time together with her since when she hasn’t got us singing. I left that night hoping very much that I’d get to know her more.
By that point, Joni was in her 50s. She had been in her wheelchair—and in constant pain—for greater than three a long time. Born in 1949 in Baltimore, the youngest of 4 girls, she was confident, outgoing, and sporty. But every part modified on that day in July 1967 when she dived into shallow water, hit her head on the underside of the Chesapeake Bay, and was immediately paralyzed.
The two years that followed brought a level of struggle that’s difficult to assume. Joni was strapped to a hospital bed. She was often alone. She quickly became aware that there can be no recovery. In this dark night of the soul, she wrestled together with her faith in a God who had allowed this to occur—and who was not answering her prayers for healing.
And, crucially, Joni read her Bible. She selected to trust the promise that “in all things God works for the nice of those that love him” (Rom. 8:28)—the sort of verse that gets a nod on good days, is difficult to trust on harder days, and requires the Spirit’s supernatural work to consider on the darkest days.
Joni believed it. She still does. Her confidence propelled her out of the hospital and right into a series of programs which have transformed lots of of hundreds of lives. Joni and Friends, established 45 years ago, features a radio ministry that teaches the Bible and helps people understand what it’s wish to live with a disability. The Wheels for the World initiative sends wheelchairs to parts of the world where they’re scarce and expensive.
Many of us are familiar, no less than partly, with these biographical details from Joni’s life. They are inspirational. But, in fact, the people we admire from a distance can often seem very different, possibly even disappointing, up close—hence that “never meet your heroes” admonition. Joni doesn’t deserve that warning. After that conference, I did indeed get to know her more. And she stays one of the vital real, faithful people I actually have ever frolicked with.
One evening at Joni’s home in Pasadena, California, as we waited for our Chinese take-out to reach, the doorbell rang. Everyone was hungry. Ken, Joni’s husband, answered the door. Instead of simply thanking the delivery man and taking the food, Ken began a conversation with him. He grabbed one in all Joni’s books about Jesus, kept near the door for this exact purpose, and gave it to the delivery man. As Ken closed the door, he said to me, “You must take every opportunity you’ll be able to to inform people concerning the Lord.”
That could possibly be a motto for each Ken and Joni. Joni views her limited mobility, which could possibly be seen as a barrier to living for Christ, as a possibility. She has used her wheelchair to share Jesus with individuals who perhaps would hearken to nobody else.
When I began writing a book for young kids about Joni’s life and faith, I knew I had to incorporate an anecdote from when our daughter, Eliza, was a little bit girl. It was one other visit with the Tadas; Eliza, with that glorious guilelessness that children have, decided to ask Joni a really direct query. “Joni,” she said, “will you ever walk again?”
Joni smiled.
“Yes, I’ll,” she said. “When I am going to heaven, Jesus will give me recent legs.”
There are insights only the eyes of suffering can see. There are cuts so deep that only faith can mend them. There are true things which might be best proven by a straightforward, steadfast trust within the Lord. And there may be a confidence all of us need that grows after we see the Lord’s shiny guarantees piercing the darkness.
These are among the otherworldly insights Joni Tada brings to all our lives. She would, in fact, inform you, and anyone who will listen, that that is all of the Lord’s grace. And it’s! But it is gorgeous to see that grace at work in and thru Joni—that grace that’s sufficient for and made perfect in weakness (2 Cor 12:9). Elisabeth Elliot, one other woman who was no stranger to navigating difficult paths, once wrote, “The secret is Christ in me, not me in a special set of circumstances.” This is Joni’s open secret.
Joni Tada resides proof of the promise she believed within the hospital all those years ago: that the Lord truly does work for the nice of those that love him, and really does conform his people into the image of his Son, even—perhaps especially—in suffering, when his plans are most opaque. She teaches us how good it’s to wish, within the words of a hymn we sang together years ago:
Good Shepherd of my soul,
Come dwell inside me;
Take all I’m and mold
Your likeness in me.
Before the cross of Christ,
This is my sacrifice:
A life laid down and able to follow.
Kristyn Getty is the founder, along together with her husband, Keith, of Getty Music. She is an award-winning hymn author, in addition to the creator of Sing! and a children’s biography, Joni Eareckson Tada: The Girl Who Learned to Follow God in a Wheelchair.
