Joni Eareckson Tada: "Celebrating Fifty Years in a Wheelchair"

Source: Joni and Friends

Joni Eareckson Tada says she celebrates the last fifty years she's spent in a wheelchair as a quadriplegic following a diving accident.

She has an amazing and inspiring story of how the Lord carried her through the adjustment of losing all use of her limbs at the age of just 17, and how He has been with her and used her life for His glory over the last half-century. (Link to her story of surviving her accident, as she told it 1993.)

In her latest devotional, A Spectacle of Glory, Joni shares, “I happened to hear recently the old Beatles classic ‘Here Comes the Sun’ — a song I listened to when I was first injured. It reminded me of the dark, depressing days in the hospital when I thought I would never smile again, would never see the sunlight of hope. And now, nearly fifty years later, I still find myself thinking, how in the world did I ever make it?

“But here I am, living in joyful hope as though it were sunshine. How did that happen? Here’s how: day after day, month after month, year after year, I simply cast myself on Jesus. I clung to his name, crying out constantly, ‘O Jesus!’”

“I want [God] to gain glory through the way I live out this ‘normal’ day . . . that people would see a difference between the way I would naturally respond and the way [God] enables me to respond by [his] Spirit. May people who observe my life see that gap and give the credit to [God].” (In Awe of Her God)

I know from reading her books that she can't always do that, like we can't, but we can take inspiration from her and from each other as we seek to depend on the Lord more and more.

Joni will be on Facebook Live this weekend: July 13 at 11:00 AM PST.