Hi, I’m Joni Eareckson Tada and I have a beautiful poem for you today.
If you listen regularly, you know how much I enjoy receiving poems from friends like you who tune in… encouraging poetry that touches the heart; the kind you want to pass on. The poem today was written by a woman named Elizabeth Hupp who used to regularly sit about three or four pews behind a certain woman in a wheelchair. For a long time, Elizabeth watched this woman in her chair, always encouraged by this lady’s great attitude and godly response to what was obviously a pretty painful disability. Finally, Elizabeth decided it was time she got to know this woman… but something happened that changed everything, and she wrote the following poem…
I saw the woman in the chair; she was in church again today.
Someone said they’ve sold their house; they’re going to move away.
Oh, no! I cried. They cannot go! They cannot move away.
I didn’t get to know her. There’s something I need to say:
Please tell me your secret ma’am; I want to sit at your feet.
I need to know how you handle the pain that is your daily meat.
How do you keep on smiling when each day your health grows worse?
How do you keep depending on God when it looks like you’re living with a curse?
Every time I see her; her smile comes from deep within.
I know her fellowship with God isn’t scarred by the chair she’s in.
She admits her health is failing; she knows she’s fading away.
How can she remain so calm when I would be running away?
My friend, can you tell me how you can trust the Lord
How can you stay so gentle and sweet when He seems to wield a sword?
You are to me a promise that even in the midst of pain
God is near and faithful if I will turn to Him again.
It’s a beautiful poem, isn’t it… and it echoes the sentiments of so many of us who feel inspired by some Christian who stands – or sits – at a distance. Well, I recently learned the name of the woman in the wheelchair who moved away. Her name is Jenny. Her daughter just wrote to tell me that Jenny was now free of her wheelchair, for she had gone home to be with Jesus recently.
When Jenny’s daughter wrote me, she included a few lines from 1 Corinthians 13 in the Amplified Bible. She told me they reminded her of what made her mother so remarkable, so encouraging to others for all those years she lived in her wheelchair. For it says – and this speaks highly of Jenny, “Love endures long and is patient and kind; love… is not conceited (arrogant or inflated with pride)… Love (God’s love in us) does not insist on its own rights or its own way, for it is not self-seeking; it is not touchy or fretful or resentful; it takes no account of the evil done to it [it pays no attention to a suffered wrong]…” Wow, those are good words from God’s Word that aptly describe a remarkable woman who is now home in heaven – if you’d like a copy of that poem that describes Jenny, please visit my radio page at joniandfriends.org. Also, while you’re there, it’ll be your last chance to download tips from my mother; helpful things to remember when you’re visiting someone in a hospital. Wow, we’ve got a lot of encouragement to pass around at Joni and Friends! So don’t forget today to pass on good words to others. Please visit me and download that poem about Jenny, this most remarkable woman in a wheelchair. Let me hear from you today at joniandfriendsradio.org. Of course you can always call by dialing 1-888-522-5664.Here’s hoping I hear from you today!
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