In June of 1967 at the age of 17
Joni Eareckson Tada took a reckless dive into
the Chesapeake Bay and her neck was
broken and from her shoulders down was
paralyzed without use of her arms or her legs.
and the next two years a very difficult
time of rehabilitation Joni learn to
draw with a pencil and then of paint
brush in her mouth and then exciting
things on top of that began to happen.
She wrote two books one called Joni
Her Own Story,  than A Step Further
A movie version of her  life called
Joni was produced by Worldwide
Pictures.  We had the privilege of
producing that film.
Then she founded an organization called Joni and Friends
which is reaching out and helping
churches to know how they can help to
encourage and minister to handicapped people
People who are physically
impaired in one way or another and then
and then another exciting thing happened
a year and a half ago she met a man who was to
become her husband and tonight for the
first time in our crusade we have Joni
and her husband Ken. Mr. and Mrs. Ken Tada
with us in the Crusade.
Let's welcome them right over here
of course I had a little insight cause I've
talked with you but you got a special
smile on your face tonight I'd like to
know first of all we'd like to know how
in the world did you meet and tell us
about the first date you had that really
would be interesting would you do that?
We're glad to have you
I think that's a question that that many people have
asked us about our first date and I just
want to say how excited we are to be
here tonight and what Lord has just blessed us in our marriage
but our first date was interesting,
our paths seem to Joni's and my paths seem
to cross many times,  we met at our church
that we attend in Southern California
and at one of the social functions I
had an opportunity to talk with Joni
and asked her if she might wanna go out to
dinner sometime
I was shocked, hahaha,  i was so excited
so she accepted and I teach Physical
Education in a high school down in Southern California
and that whole week I worked out in the weight room
because I knew that I was literally going to have
to lift her into those cars
either that or we would have chaperones on our first date
little did he realized when
he would be picking me up for a date
he'd be picking me up
for a date
but it makes me sound like  I'm so heavy,
I'm not that heavy
no my wife is not heavy,  I wanted,
I wanted to stand corrected on that, she's just not real light
but you know after
that first date, there were many more dates
and our friendship grew leaps and bounds
because it was centered around our
mutual love for the Lord Jesus Christ
and then came that day when Ken asked me
to marry him and boy I thought I was
shocked when he asked me for the first date
but we have a lot of questions
we sure did and one of the things of
course for us and we weren't really
sure what was going to happen in a
marriage with a disabled person and an
able-bodied person.  A lot of people said
well maybe you ought to experiment a little bit
or live together
yeah but you know I think the thing that
Joni and I both believe for us to have
a Christ-centered relationship and
perhaps you know just well we know a
Christ-centered marriage that that does
not give us any excuses to sin
right, why in the world should a
disability get any of us time off from
obeying God you know why should our
inconveniences or our suffering affliction
give us an excuse to sin of course not
so our honeymoon we have a lot of
questions answered
that we had a very
interesting honeymoon moments haha
I learned a lot and i'm still learning
but you know I think the biggest thing that Ken and I
have learned is that God's power shows
up best in weakness and a disability is
used by god to strengthen a marriage commitment
and I think to Joni just to
share with the folks that in our
situation might be a little bit
different than others when we go to bed
at night you know Ephesians 4:26 says " Let
not the Sun go down on your anger" and we
can't let the Sun go down on our anger
because you know and in some marriages
that I've heard you know
have some can go in another room and the
wife can stomp off to the bed
early and and you know pull the covers
around her shoulders and shrug her
back on her husband and snore away
before even comes to bed but we can't do that
you know I just can't walk out of the room
and you know here's the man who has to
take off my makeup and and comb my hair out,
how can this stay mad at somebody
when they're doing all that stuff for ya
so in a way God uses my
disability to force us to communicate to
press us to be more open but there's
some other ways that we feel that my
disability strengthens our sense of
commitment and that is this
my disability means that we've got a lot of
needs right and when you have needs as
great as we have them with this handicap
it forces us to go constantly back to
Jesus for each and every one of those needs
and you know it's great God's
grace is so amazing
cause we know don't look a week, two weeks
down the line but for Joni and I
we have we're really convinced that we ask
for God's grace on a day-to-day, hour to hour
bases and because of that He's just
teaching us all the time
and you know
constantly Christ is reminding us that
He is the center of our commitment and
yes we have a great many needs and yes
this disability makes it difficult at times
but we keep going back to Jesus who
gives meaning behind our commitment
I think too Joni of all the years that
I've coached football in high school and
the times out there on that field with
those kids and the one phrase that that
we usually tell the kids before ballgame
you know where there's no pain there's
no game and and there's going to be a
little pain but through that Christ can
just work some beautiful miracles in
our lives and
continued to just be the focus of
our marriage and help us to grow
and you know Paul said that he had learned
to be content, he knew the meaning of
commitment and that's what Ken and I are
learning that love is a choice you make
each and every day when you wake up in
the morning you know he goes off to work
in the morning to school and I'm kind
of still in bed waiting for my attendant
or friend to come and get me up and
he'll sing a song to me or her whisper
of prayer in my ear, what a great way to
start the day off together with Christ
at the center of it all
learning to be consent means making some
pretty important choices about your marriage
each and every day but you know
commitment centered around Christ can be
meaningful in every person's like you
don't have to be married, you could be
single,  you could be divorced or widowed,
no matter what kind of relationship
you have, a friendship with your children,
commitment means you hang in there when
the going gets tough and the allows God
to take whatever weakness He's given you
and make it become the very reason that
your relationship with either your
husband, your wife, your friends, your
children has strength. Jesus is the
meaning behind commitment
right
right
God bless you all and thanks so much for listening
thank you very much
