Soon after her diving accident that left her a quadriplegic, two of Joni Eareckson’s high school classmates came to visit. Her head shaved, her frame gaunt, eyes sunken, skin jaundiced, screws penetrating her skull—her appearance shocked her friends. So much that they soon ran out of the hospital room. Joni could hear one of them retching in the hallway.
As a result of this reaction, Joni asked for a mirror. What she saw horrified her to the point of becoming suicidal. She begged to be killed. A recently athletic, vibrant young Christian girl had been reduced, in her estimation, to something hideous, someone people ran from in disgust. And God had allowed it.
Joni Eareckson Tada’s autobiography, Joni – An Unforgettable Story (Zondervan, 1976, 2012), chronicles how that despairing eighteen-year-old was transformed into someone who rejected hopelessness and suicide, accepted what God had allowed, and slowly learned to thrive in faith, all while powerfully helping millions by her words, art, and graceful example. It’s the story of the few years just after her accident. The subsequent decades would make an equally significant tale.
Understandably, the accident prompted the thoughtful teenager to question her assumptions about God and faith. She searched for answers to the big questions of life in myriad non-Christian philosophies and ideologies. Ultimately, she found all to be unsatisfying. She sank into deep depression. Was life actually meaningless? Was her life, including her accident, just another example of the randomness and purposelessness of reality? Given her nearly complete disability and helplessness, was there any reason for her existence? Her way forward out of her intellectual dead end was to change her perspective. In something of an epiphany, she realized that all her questioning had revolved around her. Perhaps that was the wrong starting place. Perhaps she should start with God and his glory.
Being in the hospital be for a year seemed like eternity. But from God’s perspective, it was a blip. God must be up to something. Little by little, she began to believe that. Her life had been reduced to the mere basics for survival: eating, breathing, sleeping. But a thought invaded her mind: most people’s lives seem little different, eating, breathing, sleeping, over and over. What was the point of such lives? God broke through to her, leading gradually to the realization that He offered so much more. She had no body to control, but she was still a person who could know God and live for Him. It was the breakthrough she needed.
Her light began to brighten a little. Helpful people came into her life. Good friends spent time with her, helping her manage. A friend introduced her to a young Christian leader named Steve who, while empathetic, gave her wisdom and truth from the Bible. Generous with his time and emotional presence, Steve helped make the truths of heaven and Christ’s return and kingdom more real to her. She would have a renewed body in heaven. She saw that, agonizing as it was to experience, suffering could make her into something much greater than she had been. He encouraged her to speak to student groups about her experiences and faith. He suggested she enroll in college, and she did.
Joni does not emphasize the obvious courage she displayed in choosing to fully engage the world after her tragedy. The natural tendency, I’m sure, would be to want to avoid being spotlighted, receiving the inevitable gawks and stares. She never sought the limelight, but God had plans for her. She came to recognize the opportunities for influence for the kingdom that kept coming. Those thoughts moved her into more awe for God and acceptance of the mystery of his sovereignty. Not that she believed God had willed her extreme suffering, but that he alone could redeem it.
Her first sense of the magnitude of her expanding platform came via a television interview with the famous Barbara Walters on The Today Show. Joni had recently been recognized in several ways for her amazing art skill. With a pen held by clenched teeth, she produced drawings that the best able-bodied artists would be proud of. Her art increasingly pointed to themes of God and his goodness. The Today Show audience of tens of millions heard her compelling story and how the gospel of Christ changed everything for her.
Her story continues. Among many pursuits, she’s had an incalculable impact for the world’s disabled, especially those in less developed countries. The ministry she started, Joni and Friends, has brought wheelchairs, support, love, and the gospel to millions of the world’s most hurting, invisible, desperate people. She continues to powerfully speak and write prolifically on Christian themes, especially suffering, hope, and mercy, despite increasing health challenges. Pastor and writer Francis Chan has summed up his thoughts on Joni: “I have said many times that Joni Eareckson Tada is the most Spirit-filled person I know… I don’t know of anyone like her.”