“Sometimes God allows what He hates to accomplish what He loves.”

Those compelling words were shared by a woman who plummeted to the depths of suffering. Yet she did not allow the waves of pain to drown her. Instead, she chose to let God lift her from the bottom of that sea of despair.

Joni Eareckson Tada is a living testimony of God’s healing—a healing that goes deeper than freedom from physical pain and suffering.

I first read Joni’s book as a teenager. It was the story of a seventeen-year-old girl, just a few years older than I was at the time. She was a Christian who had given her life to Jesus at the age of 14, just as I had. Joni was spunky, fun, and athletic. She loved tennis and horse riding and she was a strong swimmer.

But, in the summer break after her high school graduation, Joni’s life changed forever. What should have been a simple dive into a bay turned out to be a catastrophic accident. Joni found herself face down in the water, unable to swim to safety after severely damaging her spine. Doctors would later confirm that Joni’s injuries had left her a quadriplegic for the rest of her life.

It has been decades since that diving accident. Decades of living in a wheelchair, paralyzed from the shoulder down. Decades of living with daily pain. Decades of being dependent on others for routine activities.

But it has also been decades of relentlessly faithful ministry. Decades of traveling the world in a wheelchair to speak of how God heals souls wrapped up in pain. Decades of singing, writing, and teaching about Jesus.

Without a doubt, when I think about modern-day heroes, Joni tops my list.

Of course, I’m not saying she is perfect or incapable of making mistakes. That would be naïve of me. And I’m fairly sure Joni herself would never make that claim. She is as flawed and human as any of us. I do not intend to put her on a pedestal.

But I do believe her extraordinary ministry from her wheelchair is something that all of us can learn from.

Joni doesn’t sugarcoat her suffering. I had the privilege of being in the audience when she visited Bangalore, where I live. I’ve heard her interviews, sermons, and songs, and enjoyed the deeply incisive, passionate articles that she writes. She keeps things startlingly real. She shares the heartache of dealing with daily debilitating pain. She pulls back the curtain on her sense of helplessness, where she can’t even comb her hair. In recent years, she has battled cancer twice and experienced the drastic side effects of chemotherapy.

But as raw and vulnerable as she is about her pain, she doesn’t dwell there. Instead, moment by moment, this extraordinary woman, now in her seventies, lives in complete dependence on the Lord.

Friends, suffering can drive us away from the Lord—or to His Throne of Grace. We can harden our hearts and choose self-reliance and pride. Or, like Joni, we can choose to be real before the Lord. We can lament and grieve over our pain. We can cry out to Him and say, “Lord, I can’t do this thing called life without You.” And then, instead of staying stuck in suffering, we can let our utter helplessness drive us into the arms of Jesus.

May we cultivate that sense of earnest dependency on Jesus through every moment of our lives. Maybe you’re not confined to a wheelchair or physically paralyzed. But we are confined by our thoughts and find ourselves paralyzed by fear and anxiety. Could we let that brokenness lead us to our Beautiful Saviour?

I love the honestly eloquent way Joni says it:

“The weaker I am, the harder I must lean on God’s grace; the harder I lean on Him, the stronger I discover Him to be, and the bolder my testimony to His grace.”

In a world that says, “Show people you’re strong,” know that it’s okay to be weak. Because it’s in acknowledging our not-enoughness that we discover God’s strength.

In a world that says, “Figure it out for yourself,” know that it’s okay not to have all the answers. It’s in acknowledging our ineptness that we discover God’s infinite wisdom.

In a world that says, “Fix your appearance so you can fit in,” know that it’s okay to be flawed and not match up to external standards of perfection. It’s in acknowledging our brokenness that we discover the precious healing of the soul.

God often uses our pain to paint a picture of His perfect love.

Joni doesn’t pretend her paralysis is easy. But she sees it as a gift because it brings her into deeper intimacy with Jesus. In her words, “He has chosen not to heal me, but to hold me. The more intense the pain, the closer His embrace.”

Today—and every day—may our brokenness lead us to our Savior, who holds us through it all and redeems our pain for His glory.

 

 

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This post first appeared on Indiaanya