Quadriplegia, Despair, and Learning to Truly Live ft. Joni Eareckson Tada | 007
Paralyzed at seventeen and a quadriplegic for nearly sixty years, Joni Eareckson Tada talks with John Ortberg about despair, anger at God, and pain. What emerges is a hard-won hope: that Jesus is "the treasure, not the consolation prize," a word for anyone whose circumstances may never be okay.
Joni Eareckson Tada became a quadriplegic at seventeen after a diving accident that severed her spinal cord. In the nearly six decades since, she has written dozens of books, founded a global disability ministry, survived two bouts of cancer, and woken up every single morning asking Jesus to get her through the day.
This is a conversation about what it means to receive suffering with both hands: the anger, the prayers that didn't get answered the way she hoped, the agony, and what gets faithfully built through it all.
About the Guest
Joni Eareckson Tada became a quadriplegic at seventeen after a diving accident that severed her spinal cord. In the decades since, she has become one of the most recognized voices on suffering, disability, and faith in the world. She is the founder and CEO of Joni and Friends, a global ministry serving people with disabilities in over 100 countries. Her memoir, Joni, has sold more than five million copies. She is an artist, author, and speaker who has shared platforms with Billy Graham and appeared on programs from the Today Show to venues around the world. She and her husband, Ken, live in California.
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What This Conversation Explores
- The diving accident, the hospital room, and the slow realization that nothing was going to change
- What it took to move from wanting to die to learning to give thanks
- A 17-year-old boy with a Bible and a verse from 1 Thessalonians and how he changed everything
- How a passage in Mark 1 reframed what Jesus actually came to do
- What Joni discovered about sin that she couldn't have learned on her feet
- The prayer she prayed three months before her accident and what she makes of it now
- What the cross has to do with finding God in suffering
- Joni and Friends: wheelchairs, Bibles, and changing the disability culture of entire countries
- Disability ministry as disability discipleship
- Two bouts with cancer, a radiation machine named after Jael, and what it means to press into Christ
- What to say to someone who is in pain right now
Resources Mentioned
- Joni — Joni Eareckson Tada
- Joni and Friends — joniandfriends.org
- Wheels for the World — Joni and Friends wheelchair delivery program
- Everything Happens for a Reason and Other Lies We Tell Ourselves — Kate Bowler
- William Law — quote on receiving suffering with both hands
- Dorothy Sayers — on God wrenching good from evil
- Dallas Willard — on the heart, behavior, and the Sermon on the Mount
- 2 Corinthians 4:8, Philippians 4:13, 1 Kings 19 — Scripture discussed
About Formation
Formation is a podcast that explores the science and soul of spiritual formation. Each episode brings together the ancient wisdom of the contemplative tradition and the best of modern research. John Ortberg sits down with some of the most rigorous and honest thinkers working at the intersection of faith and human flourishing for extended, unhurried conversations about how we are being shaped. New episodes every other week, wherever you listen to podcasts.
Connect with Formation
- Website: formationpodcast.com
- Follow John: @formationjohn
- Write to us: editors@formationpodcast.com
Formation is produced by Become New, a community dedicated to helping you grow spiritually, one day at a time. Subscribe for daily teaching from John Ortberg at becomenew.com/subscribe.
