Hey, everybody, thanks for sending in your Heart for the Disabled cards and letters!
I'm Joni Eareckson Tada and this week we are sending out hundreds – I mean literally hundreds – of cards and letters that you and so many others wrote to our Heart for the Disabled recipients for this Valentine's Day. I can’t wait for all these disabled people and their families to spread out the cards and letters (I can just picture it) on the living room floor and while they are doing that they are going to experience a little bodybuilding… a little love from the body of Christ that will truly build them up for the days and weeks to come. So, thank you for sending your card to encourage those who are really suffering.
And when I say suffering, I am keenly aware that it is God's choicest tool to mold their character in the midst of a disability… suffering does it and suffering does a number on your character, too, right? But suffering is one of those things that has not only great potential for good, but great potential for bad – a little like fire. It can either cook a great hamburger… or it can set a forest on fire within minutes. The same is true for suffering. It can either mold character and develop patience and self-control, or it can also breed a pity party. I should know because it has happened to me.
In fact, I remember one time I was at a missions conference and someone was pushing my wheelchair rather quickly across an icy parking lot. In the next instant my friend’s foot slipped and she lost control of my wheelchair causing it to swerve and careen up on one wheel and I went flying face-forward into the parking lot. Being paralyzed, I couldn’t use my hands to cushion the fall. I could only shut my eyes as the asphalt came rushing at me. I struck the asphalt, felt my body bounce and roll near the front of our Ford station wagon.
Right away I wasn’t knocked unconscious but I began struggling, I wanted to feel sorry for myself… but also, I wanted to help those around me who were as shaken as I was by the accident. I was struggling between the two. We had just finished hearing missionaries talk about the duty we Christians have toward one another. And my first responsibility was not to collapse in defeat, but to honor God by showing these friends in practice what is true in theory. So I asked the Lord to give me grace, to help me set an example… and I was amazed how everyone then stayed calm… people broke up into small groups and began praying… someone called an ambulance… others piled coats on my chest… someone else notified a pastor. It was a remarkable moment of what I like to call bodybuilding – a moment when the body of Christ draws together to support one another, not out of fear or pity, but out of trust in God and a desire to honor Him.
Friend, that’s what you did with your Heart for the Disabled letters you wrote to Alicia and Diane and Reuben and the Crawfords and all the rest who are going to receive their notes of encouragement this week. You have put into practice First Corinthians 12 and have given honor to the weaker members, lifting them up, not out of pity, but out of trust in God and a desire to extol Him.
I would like for you to learn more about the importance of doing this little thing that is building up the body of Christ, and I’ve written a little booklet called Bodybuilding that I know you will enjoy reading. Just visit me today, would you, at joniandfriendsradio.org, click on the little cover, and I'll get it to you in the mail right away. Or you can call 1-888-522-5664 and we’ll send it out or you can write to Joni and Friends, P.O. Box 3333, Agoura Hills, CA 91376. Either way, I want you to understand the potential for good there is in suffering. Thanks for doing that. Thanks for being a bodybuilder for the body of Christ.
Used by permission of
JONI AND FRIENDS
P.O. Box 3333
Agoura Hills, CA 91376
© Joni and Friends