Hi, I’m Joni Eareckson Tada, the lady who loves to paint.
I should explain that I actually paint holding brushes between my teeth. And I love showing my artwork to anyone who comes to visit the Joni and Friends International Disability Center. I always like to tell them about those first days in occupational therapy so many years ago when I was a frightened, young teenager facing life without use of my hands or legs. The occupational therapist walked up to me with a fistful of felt-tip pens; she pushed my wheelchair up to a table easel; she had placed on it a large spiral-bound tablet. It was flipped open to a big sheet of plain white paper. She held up a pen that had clear plastic tubing on one end and said to me, “Joni, I want to put this pen in your mouth (just bite into the tubing to protect your teeth), just chomp down, and once you feel comfortable with it, I’d like you to lean forward and write the alphabet on this tablet.”
It was like… what?! You’ve got to be kidding. I told her, I said, “Look, maybe other disabled people do that, but not me. I'm going to get back use of my hands. I'm not going to give up so easily, and just do stuff that handicap people do.” It was such a stubborn, stiff-necked response. It also was a response filled with puffed-up pride. I thought I was better; I thought I was above other people in wheelchairs. So I refused to clutch that pen in my teeth and write anything on that tablet. Well, the next day in occupational therapy, they wheeled into the room a young man named Tom who had broken his neck in a motorcycle accident. He was much more disabled than I was – this guy couldn’t even shrug his shoulders. But then I watched the OT approach him with that pen to give him the same spiel. To my amazement, Tom took the pen in his teeth and slowly, with great effort, began to write the letters of the alphabet on that tablet. As I watched him make this courageous effort, I felt so ashamed. There was no way I was going to consider myself better than him. So after he finished, I meekly asked the occupational therapist if I could please draw on that tablet too, and I did.
Psalm 97:7 says, “All who worship images are put to shame…” The image I had been worshipping back then was myself, my able-bodied self! Pride was my idol. But isn’t it like God to knock down the idols in our lives – and when He does, we always feel disgrace and embarrassment. Looking back, I am so grateful that God shamed me through Tom’s example. And now? I am so happy to paint and draw with pens and brushes between my teeth – I don’t do it as often as I used to, but I love telling this story to people when they come to visit our International Disability Center and I show them my art studio. In fact, we just hung up my paintings on a new wall and even put in special track lighting – I’d love for you to see it, and you can by just going to my radio page today at joniandfriends.org where I’ve posted a photo of my artwork newly hung in our Center. And while you’re on my radio page, don’t forget to ask for your free gift of my Gospel pamphlet “Access to God.”It not only gives the Good News, it includes many of my favorite paintings – something for you to show your friends, or maybe give to a neighbor in the hospital. Lord willing, they will see that if God can empower me to rise above my circumstances, what more can He do in their lives?! It’s all for you today at joniandfriends.org.
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