Joni reflects back on the story of when she first broke her neck and felt so isolated. She shares ways of God teaching her how to live to get out of the darkness.
SHAUNA: This is Shauna on Joni Eareckson Tada Sharing Hope. Joni, I never tire of hearing your story.
JONI: Well, Shauna, it’s the story of so many people with disabilities [oh, you know, people with long-term medical conditions, chronic pain, a hard situation that doesn’t change]. And you know how the story begins for me. I broke my neck in a diving accident, just a few weeks after my high school graduation. Doctors said, “Joni, you’re going to be paralyzed for the rest of your life.” It was like, what?! Come on, I was young and athletic; I was heading to college; this couldn’t be happening. And after I got home from the hospital, the doctor’s words sank in. And bitterness took over. I hissed at heaven. I said, “God, I can’t live like this. I won’t live like this.” I told my mother to pull my drapes, turn out the light, shut the door. And there in the darkness, I laid in bed for weeks. But my self-pity became so suffocating. Dark and morbid thoughts were worse than my paralysis, and so, I whimpered, “God, if I can’t die then please show me how to live!” It was the most feeble, faint-hearted prayer I had ever offered up, but it’s all it took.
Immediately, God put Christian friends in my life who opened the Bible to help, you know, “show me how to live.” In its pages, I discovered powerful promises. God hadn’t abandoned me. The Lord had a purpose. And over time, I did not find all the answers, but I sure found the one who held them all. I found contentment in Jesus, the only answer that seemed to satisfy all my longings.
That was the point when a friend, Steve Estes, shared ten little words that changed my life: God permits what he hates to accomplish what he loves. That’s right, God permits all sorts of things he doesn’t approve of. Like, the cross of his own son, Jesus. He hated what happened that awful day at Calvary, but he permitted it to accomplish something that he loved, something so valuable that it cost the gruesome death of his own son. And that is salvation for a world of sinners. I learned to look at my spinal cord injury the same way. God took no delight in my broken neck; he hates suffering; but through it, he accomplished the “something” that he was after. And that is: “Christ in me, the hope of glory.”
You know, there’s a world of other people with disabilities, many of whom will never have the chance to leave their dark bedrooms. And I understand their agony and, oh, how they need to see that Jesus is their answer, too. And it’s why at Joni and Friends, we love giving the good news of Jesus Christ wherever we go. Jesus even commands us in Luke 14 to go out and find “the disabled, the lame, and the blind.” And that command is for me, personal. My heart breaks to think that the suffering that people with disabilities endure here on earth may only be a dark omen of worse suffering to come in an eternity without Jesus Christ! So, Shauna, at Joni and Friends we tell people with disabilities that “sin kills, hell is real, but God is so merciful, right? He can save you, and Jesus is the way!”
SHAUNA: That’s right, Joni! And listening, friend, Jesus is the way for you, too. He is the way through your suffering. He is the way to hope and contentment. We’ve posted a video of Joni telling her story at joniradio.org. So, please share that video with someone who needs Christ as their answer. Just click the link at joniradio.org.
JONI: God bless you today and thanks for listening!
© Joni and Friends