Joni Eareckson Tada

First sentence: I love practicing the presence of my Savior in the dark of night when I cannot sleep. Rather than contend with anxiety, I empty out my heart and pour the beauties of Jesus into it. I fill it with love words for him, each borrowed from the Bible.

This is not the same book as the Practice of the Presence of God. Don't be fooled! Instead delight at this inspirational 'spin-off' of sorts. There are quotes from Brother Lawrence sprinkled throughout, but this is a new devotional show more book by Joni Eareckson Tada. There are over a hundred devotions.

I am not usually a fan of devotional books, key word being usually. But I am a BIG fan of Joni Eareckson Tada. I do love a good devotional book that is substantive spiritually. I don't like light, fluffy, superficial. This one was absolutely wonderful. It was an amazing read. One that I would highly recommend.

Quotes:
True, God remedied our “mischief,” but, oh, at such a cost! So I practice the presence of Jesus every time I take sin seriously and refuse to sweep small sins under the carpet of my conscience. God forbid that I should ever call an offense against God “tiny” when it has caused my Savior unimaginable pain. May I never minimize the sin that made him suffer.


Expect to meet Jesus in your pain, and you most certainly will. For he has already entered that awful place ahead of you. He transformed it by his power and presence and came out the other side. He uprooted its dread and left it a place of resurrection and hope. So take a deep breath and step into your agony, anticipating that you’ll see Jesus.


It is a fight to trust Jesus. I must trust that everything my heart could ever long for is wrapped up in him and that he is far superior to anything the world offers. To not believe this is to demonstrate an utter lack of trust in my Savior.


God allows only those things that are designed to strengthen my soul, stretch its capacity for himself, and increase its hunger and thirst for the grace of Jesus.


If you are perplexed by the secret ways of God in your troubles, always filter them through Jesus, the Way that can be trusted … no matter what.


But Jesus wants to be bothered. It pleases him when we bring him our shame. Pain may insist that prayer will not “make it go away,” but prayer always engages me with the power and presence of Jesus Christ, who gladly pours out a deluge of courage, a reservoir of perseverance, a wellspring of endurance and patience, and a marvelous peace that goes far beyond my understanding. When I remember this, it brings Jesus pleasure. He smiles when I listen to his voice rather than the voice of my agonies.


Jesus doesn’t have what my soul needs; he is what I need.


The best thing you can do for yourself, as well as for the people around you, is to trust God. The harder things are, the better you make God look when you put your faith in him.
If my faith meant only what I believe about Christ in my mind, it would not be faith at all. Faith in Christ will always stay in the world of theory and shadows, ambiguous and hazy, until it is called forth and put to the grind. Faith needs exercise so that when someone asks me, “Who is this Jesus, and what do you believe about him, Joni?” I can confidently respond, “He is my fountain of joy in all my sufferings, and let me prove that by the way I trust him.”


The incomparably great power of Christ is within your grasp. So draw close enough to Jesus to reach out and touch the hem of his garment. He will give you power. Power to endure, hold on to hope, and find courage.


Jesus did not die to make us healthy but to make us holy. He came not to make us comfortable but to heal us of our propensity to sin. The best cures have to do with eschewing sin and drawing closer to Jesus Christ. It’s better than any amount of walking.


I grab my thoughts by the scruff of the neck; I push them into the pages of Scripture to give them a good dose of gospel truth. I show my idle thoughts who is the real boss of my soul, for I must not allow shiftless thinking to rule over me. I am like the psalmist who commanded his foolish musings, telling his soul, “Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him, my Savior and my God” (Psalm 42: 5). show less

It's all too easy to think/wish/hope that the Christian walk is easy. And yet, we see all too many examples both today and within the Bible that that is just simply not the case. (But, Lord, if you want me to walk an easy road, I'm okay with giving it a shot. Just saying. :D)

Jesus says in John 16:33 that we will experience trials and tribulations in this world; Joni Eareckson Tada is one example of that. She shares parts of her story here in _Songs of Suffering_, along with sharing many show more others' stories--spanning centuries. Life is anything but easy. But some of the most beautiful hymns--and frankly songs in general--have been written out of the depths of horrific pain and hardship. This book brings a sampling of those to light, reminding me I--we--are not alone in pain; not only is it not unique to me or to humankind, but our Savior! He experienced the ultimate! And hymns, both those written many moons ago and more recently (yayyyy Getty team, for one), remind me of so many rich theological truths.

_Songs of Suffering_ presents an incredible collection of hymns, both familiar and new to me (and I can't wait to look up the new ones!). I love how Tada correlates music with memory; it's so true that setting things to music helps me, for one, remember them so much better. The formatting on the sheet music was a bit wonky for me (the joys of eARCs), but I'd probably end up looking them up on YouTube anyway to get an idea of the actual tunes. And the included photography was just stunning!

An encouraging read I could stand to revisit many a time over years to come.

I received an eARC of the book from the publisher via NetGalley. All opinions are my own. show less

Joni Eareckson Tada is well known as the Christian quadriplegic whose ministry, Joni and Friends, ministers the gospel to people with disabilities around the world. What is less well known are the details of her marriage to Ken Tada, that handsome "island guy" she noticed in church one Sunday some thirty-plus years ago. Joni and Ken: An Untold Love Story is the chronicle of their marriage — its sweet joys, painful trials, and deep complexities.

What would it be like to be married to show more someone who cannot move anything below the neck? The daily grind for non-impaired people can be hard enough, but how does one cope with the daily grind of quadriplegia? How do the grooves of marriage run when all the things we take for granted are complicated and intensified by disability?

Unlike Joni's other books, this is told in the third person — our perspective as outsiders peering over their shoulders into their real lives. This approach was very effective; I found myself tearing up at certain passages, getting a lump in my throat, suffering with them as I read about their struggles. Rejoicing with them as God taught them new things, wondering with them what His purposes were.

This is a very honest book. As much as we might want to make Joni a saint (a danger mentioned in this book) and put Ken on a pedestal for marrying a woman with such a profound disability, their honesty won't allow it. As their love story unfolds, we get to see their moments of frustration and anger, of pain and emotional separation. We see the physical burden Joni's disability puts on Ken, and the emotional toll it takes on both. We see incredibly dark moments when they were tempted to accuse God and ask Him why He would let them suffer like this. Chronic pain, cancer, pneumonia. Depression, distance, grief.

But we also see God's faithfulness, proven again and again. We see incredible grace and strength and help given in just the worst moment of need. We see, in the broken frame of fallible people, a masterpiece of God's work. He never lets go. And He has done truly amazing things in and through Joni and Ken.

This is a quick read — and once you start reading, it's hard to put down. It leaves me taken aback at the suffering in this world, but also marveling at how God sustains His children and uses their pain for great good.

Thank You, Lord, for Your faithfulness to Joni and Ken. Please continue to work out your good purposes in their lives. show less

This is not great literature, but if you've followed Joni Eareckson Tada's story so far, as I have off and on, this book provides a glimpse into her later years. In 1967 Joni developed quadriplegia as the result of a diving accident. She credits her strong Christian faith with allowing her to live a productive life.

The book starts off with four pages of endorsements from many of the big names in the American Evangelicalism, most of whom are known for promoting a complementarian approach to show more marriage. This means that the husband, by virtue of being male, must "lead" and the wife, by virtue of being female, must "submit". No exceptions. That's interesting, because in the Eareckson-Tada marriage, it seems just the opposite. For most of their marriage, Joni is the visionary leader, the CEO of a large nonprofit organization that helps disabled people all over the world, and Ken is in the background, teaching high school and going fishing as often as possible. Living in her shadow, he grows resentful and depressed. She develops chronic pain related to her quadriplegia and later breast cancer. They are not very happy until Ken reads John Eldredge's Wild at Heart and realizes that his true purpose in life is to "rescue a beauty"--Joni. He has since retired from teaching and now devotes his life to traveling with her and taking care of her. One could even say that he's her "helpmeet". This is great, in my opinion, but I'm not a complementarian. It just makes me wonder why so many Christian complementarians endorsed a book that's antithetical to their views.

Unlike Joni's previous books, this one is written in the third person. The effect of having an omniscient narrator relate the couple's intimate moments and thoughts, which it's pretty safe to say he didn't witness, is rather strange. Speaking of intimacy, the book mentions, but leaves unanswered, questions of sexuality and fertility. It's only natural that readers would wonder how these issues are impacted by quadriplegia, but the narrator maintains a discreet silence. Similarly, Joni's experience of inexplicable, chronic pain is mentioned (it sounds like a horrible thing to experience), but it is never fully explored. Does she still have it? The narrator doesn't say.

This book is may be worth reading if you want to know whatever happened to the girl in the wheelchair who painted beautiful landscapes by holding a brush in her mouth, but it would be unsatisfying to those not already familiar with Joni's story. show less