Joni gave a great interview with Tabletalk Magazine for their October edition, Dealing with Death and Disease. You can read the entire interview here: A Purpose in the Pain: An Interview with Joni Eareckson Tada.
Here is an excerpt (paragraph formatting is mine):
TT: Which passages of Scripture have given you encouragement during your struggles with disability and cancer?
JT: Psalm 79:8 says, “May your mercy come quickly to meet us, for we are in desperate need” (NIV).
Basically, I wake up almost every morning in desperate need of Jesus — from those early days when I first got out of the hospital, to over four decades in a wheelchair, it’s still the same. The morning dawns and I realize: “Lord, I don’t have the strength to go on. I have no resources. I can’t ‘do’ another day of quadriplegia, but I can do all things through You who strengthen me. So please give me Your smile for the day; I need You urgently.”
This, I have found, is the secret to my joy and contentment. Every morning, my disability — and, most recently, my battle with cancer — forces me to come to the Lord Jesus in empty-handed spiritual poverty. But that’s a good place to be because Jesus says, “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven” (Matt. 5:3, NIV).
Very humbling and so good!
I’m going to pull up your interview for my daughter. She read a biography of you for older children, and will be blessed by this as well.
Indeed, we are in desperate need of Jesus. We all just don’t know it. Thank you for reminding us.
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