It’s amazing what you can learn from a teenager living in the slums of India.
Hi, I'm Joni Eareckson Tada and I have to describe what happened the other day. I was working at my desk when finally I just couldn’t take the pain in my hip any longer. So I closed up my computer and my girlfriend helped me lie down in a little bed adjacent to my office. I felt so defeated lying there and I kept thinking of all the stuff I wouldn’t be able to do that I promised I would (deadlines, a lunch date, a couple phone calls I had to make). I was stuck… what made matters worse was, I was stuck in pain, too – sometimes lying down just doesn’t alleviate the discomfort, you know what I mean?
Well, as I laid there, I tried ever so hard to welcome this particular trial as a friend; I tried to see it as refining my faith, something in which to rejoice, I tried to see it as a chance to thank Jesus for His purpose and providence in my life, but it was really difficult to actually say those words to the Lord and mean it. It was like my throat got tight; I just did not have the emotional or spiritual strength to “in everything give thanks,” especially about my painful hip and having to lie down in bed.
Well, right then when I was in bed I got an email from a friend who had just gotten back from India on one of our Wheels for the World teams. She described an 18-year-old girl named Shantamma who comes from a Hindu family near the slums of Ongole, India. Born with a disability, Shantamma has spent her life scooting on the floor, rarely venturing outside her home, but Light pierced the darkness of her disability four years ago when the pastor of a very small local Christian church gave her a tattered copy of a book called Joni. Shantamma, this disabled teenager with tears rolling down her cheeks, told my friend, “I have read this book called Joni eight times. I read it over and over to learn how Joni trusts God. This is where my confidence comes from, and from Joni I have found confidence to live my life with a disability, too. I have left the Hindu religion and I attend the church of my pastor-friend. My friends ridicule me,” Shantamma said, “but Joni gave her life to Jesus and she has inspired me to do the same.”
I tell you, when I read that it hit me. I felt so ashamed of myself, complaining about my hip pain and having to lie down when for years this 18-year-old had been lying down for ages, not to mention living on the floor for most of her life. This girl really put me in my place and right then I confessed to God how sorry I was for my rotten attitude. I then learned that Shantamma had attended our Wheels for the World distribution that week to receive her very first wheelchair. You can imagine this teenager’s surprise when she learned that these wheelchairs were sent by “her very own Joni,” as she put it. “Jesus did so much through Joni’s life, without fail, God will use me, too! Wherever He leads me in this wheelchair, I am willing to go ... just like Joni!” Boy, isn’t it amazing how God puts the body of Christ together in just such a way so we can encourage one another and lift each other up just when we need each other? It just shows you, someone is always observing you… someone is always learning from your example. They’re either learning how to trust God more or they’re learning by watching you live like the rest of the world, skeptical, cynical, and disgruntled.
Friend, if you identify with this, I’d love to hear about it. Write me today, would you, at joniandfriendsradio.org – just click on the Contact Us page and tell me your story. And it’s the last day to get your prayer reminder magnets by calling 888-522-5664 or just click on joniandfriendsradio.org. Visit me today!
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