Biography
Joni Eareckson was born on October 15, 1949, in Baltimore, Maryland. She was the youngest of four daughters in a family that loved the outdoors. Her father, Johnny, was a self-made man who raised his girls to ride horses, swim and be strong. She grew up active, quick-witted and fearless. As a teenager she loved riding, tennis, hiking and swimming. She also had an unsteady faith. She went to church and prayed some, but God was more a distant friend than a living Lord.
On July 30, 1967, at seventeen years old, she dove into the shallow water of Chesapeake Bay at Maryland and struck the bottom. She broke her neck, severed her spinal cord and was left paralyzed from the shoulders down. She did not know how badly she was hurt at first. When she understood, she was crushed. She spent long months in the hospital, lying in a bed turned on a frame, and the grief and the anger came in waves. She wanted to die. She begged God to heal her. She asked how a loving God could allow it.
Those were dark years. She questioned the reality of heaven, the goodness of God and the point of living. Over time a few friends and a youth leader named Steve Estes came to her bedside. They read the Bible with her. They did not offer shallow answers. They sat with her in her questions and showed her that God had not left her. Slowly she came to see that her faith was not about a healing that God owed her. It was about a God who is worthy to be trusted when He does not answer the way we ask.
She began to learn to paint with a brush held in her mouth, and she found that she could draw, and she discovered a gift. Her pictures sold, and she also taught herself to write. In 1976 she published her story in a book called Joni, written with Joe Musser. It sold in great numbers, and in 1979 a film of her life was released in which she played herself. People around the world read her honest account of grief, rage and grace. She did not hide the struggle. She wrote that she had cursed and despaired, and that she had been brought step by step to a deeper trust.
In 1979 she founded Joni and Friends, a ministry to people with disabilities and their families. It began as a small work and grew into an international organization. It sends wheelchairs to those who have none in many nations through a program called Wheels for the World. It also holds family retreats and trains churches to welcome and serve people with disabilities. She believed that the church had too often left the disabled at the margins and that the body of Christ is incomplete without them.
In 1982 she married Ken Tada, a high school teacher and a man of steady character. They have been married for decades. Ken has cared for her with a quiet devotion and has served beside her in the ministry. She has written dozens of books, recorded music and spoken on radio programs that reach millions. She has also served on national councils concerned with disability, and she is known for her clear voice on the dignity of human life.
Her sufferings did not end in the first years. In 2010 she began to live with severe chronic pain, which has often kept her awake and weary. Later she faced breast cancer and went through treatment. She has said, plainly and without drama, that the pain is real and that she needs grace for each day. She does not claim to feel strong all the time. She has told of weeks when she cried out to God and could only pray the shortest prayers. She speaks of the daily need to ask Jesus for strength to get through the next hour.
Her life is a witness that a person can be hurt past what words can say and still be held. She does not preach that suffering is good in itself. She preaches that God is good in the middle of it and that He works through weakness. She has often said that she would rather be in a wheelchair knowing God than walking without Him. Many who have read her books have found the courage to keep going.