Welcome to "Joni and Friends"; I’m Joni Eareckson Tada.
Sixteen-year-old Tasha Schuh was living life on a stage — literally — starring in local theatre productions such as “The Wizard of Oz” and “Grease,” when one day she was involved in a tragic accident. Tasha and her fellow cast members were practicing a scene change when someone yelled for Tasha to “get out of the way!” She moved back without looking and the next thing she knew, she was falling. When Tasha woke up in the hospital, she was told that she had stepped back through an open trap door and fell 16’ onto a cement floor. The impact of the fall broke her neck and damaged her spinal cord so badly that she became permanently paralyzed from the chest down.
Tasha could not wrap her mind around this and why it had happened, and since she had no one else to blame for the accident, she blamed God. After completing rehabilitation, Tasha was sent home to learn how to live life in a wheelchair — it was so painful, so frustrating. All she could think about were the ‘what ifs’: What if she hadn’t stepped back on that stage? What if she had never signed up for that play? All she could think about was the life that she lost — her life on stage. She began to doubt whether God really existed, and if He was good, then why He allowed this awful thing to happen. She’d grown up with a very surface relationship with God; she and God were kinda “cool” and somehow, someway, she had missed reading all those Bible passages about trials and tribulations and perseverance and suffering … but now that was the world in which she found herself.
It wasn’t until after her accident when a local church performed a play about the need for Jesus, that Tasha recognized her need. She was tired of hanging on her cross; she wanted to learn how to carry it, how to bear it, how to take up her cross in the strength of the Lord. So that night, after the church play, she opened up her heart anew and afresh to Jesus Christ. It wasn’t an overnight transformation, but Tasha knew that at least she was now on the right path.
And that path led her to Winona State University where she started going to an Intervarsity Fellowship. It was in that fellowship that she really began to dig deep into the Word of God. And now, when she came across passages about trials and suffering, they weren’t scary—rather, they spoke to her. The more she studied the Bible, the more she realized she had never read it or understood how deep and wide God's sustaining grace could be. The result? Every one of Tasha’s immediate family members committed their lives to Jesus because of the transformation they saw in Tasha. This young woman’s life was now on a different stage — a stage from which everyone could see God's amazing grace at work in her life, all because she placed her trust and confidence in her Savior.
If you were to ask Tasha today why this bad thing had happened to her, she would point to her family members, all of whom are now saved. She would point to her purpose for living, as well as her smile and peace of mind. She would point to the many people who have responded to her personal testimony. Why do bad things happen? I think there’s a very personal and individual answer for each Christian who suffers—for when Christ gives you a cross to bear, God wants you to pick it up and carry it, not hang on it. There are more answers for you in a little booklet I wrote called “Why Bad Things Happen.” Just go to my radio page today at joniandfriends.org and ask for your free copy. Oh, and while you’re there, take a look at a photo of Tasha. I think you’ll find her smile very inspirational.
© Joni and Friends, 2013
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