Yes, part of her enjoyed the attention, the spotlight, and the affirmation. But mostly, she just felt vertigo up on a high pedestal. And there had been times when she deliberately toppled herself off that high platform just so she could be back on the same level with everyone else.
Nevertheless, she couldn’t help being Joni. And she couldn’t deny the wondrous things God had done for her and enabled her to do. Like the prophet Samuel in the Old Testament, she had raised her Ebenezer, her “stone of help,” declaring to all, “Thus far the LORD has helped me.” She couldn’t walk away from the role He had given her: to be an encourager and cheerleader for people with disabilities, as well as for the discouraged and disenfranchised.
She had come to accept it and live with it as a matter of course; it went with the territory. But she had worried about Ken sometimes. Was he marrying the persona or the real person? It felt at times like he was walking into marriage with an idyllic view of who she was and what a lifetime with a quadriplegic woman really meant.
Was he really ready for it? All of it? He had to be, or it wouldn’t be right to go forward with it. It wouldn’t be fair to either one of them.
She remembered a conversation they’d had back when they were dating. On a chilly night, they had just emerged from her van and faced one another in the darkness of her open garage.
“Ken,” she had been saying, “I’m afraid you don’t know me. I’m afraid you have me built up in your mind — like one of those plaster of Paris saints.”
She turned her chair so she could face him squarely. With the bright moonlight behind her, however, she cast a shadow over his face and couldn’t see his features.
“I feel like I know the real you,” he said. “All I need to know.”
“You don’t know me. You know a book. A movie. A record album. You take me to all these speaking engagements where I have to look my best, speak my best, and be at my best in front of everybody. You see me after some very gifted women have labored for hours over my hair and my makeup and my clothing. But life can’t be all ‘best.’ There are things about me that you wouldn’t like at all. Things that might turn your stomach.”
He didn’t speak … and she couldn’t see his face.
She went on. “I’m not just talking about the bathroom stuff — leg bags and all the rest of it that goes with being paralyzed. There are things about me, my personality—times when I’m not very nice to be around. I can be selfish. I can be a perfectionist.”
“So what are you saying?” he stepped out of her shadow, showing his face in the moonlight. A strong, kind, honest face. He loved her; she could see that. And at that moment he was also troubled. So was she.
“I don’t know … I don’t know,” she said.
She just wanted him to be sure. Sure of who she was. Sure of what he was signing up for. If he was just starstruck and in love with an image, how would that get them through the long years ahead, dealing with the myriad complications of her disability? Did he understand she had a limited life expectancy? Had he really grappled with how difficult it would be, unless God healed her? Did he have perspective? Had he been able at all to look down through the years at what this would mean for his life? His mother had been troubled when she met Joni. Confused. It wasn’t what she had wanted for her only son. Maybe he should have listened to her genuine, heartfelt concerns.
Ken had always said yes, he understood. That he got it. That God was in this. That he had counted the cost and wanted to go forward anyway.
She could only pray it was true.
JULY 3, 1982
She drove to the church with her sister Kathy in the van, negotiating the traffic of the Ventura Freeway, sailing along in her preferred middle lane. It seemed like any other day in L.A.
But it wasn’t.
All those cars and trucks speeding behind, ahead, and on both sides of her had no idea what a landmark day — a day of days! — this really was. So she and her sister began singing out loud, “I’m getting married in the morning! Ding dong! The bells are gonna chime!” Joni capped the song with a shout in her van. “It’s my wedding day!”
Grace Community Church was big enough to have its own bridal salon, and that’s where Joni got ready. The preparation began with her girlfriends lying her down on a couch and shifting her paralyzed body this way and that so they could pull her wedding gown over her. After she was corseted and buttoned, they lifted her back into her wheelchair, draping her gown carefully over a thin wire mesh that covered the wheels to keep the fabric from getting caught in the spokes. She watched in the mirror as they combed her hair and applied her makeup. She was being “prepared as a bride adorned for her husband,” as it said in the Scriptures, and it was through the willing hands of others. It seemed a little surreal to just sit there and watch herself becoming a bride.
Everyone else, it seemed, was scurrying around, chattering, doing this and that, while she sat stationary in the middle of it all, a still point in a turning world. The fact was, even though she couldn’t scurry around if she wanted to, she felt calm and peaceful.
When the organ music began down in the auditorium, she wheeled herself toward the salon door, pausing for a moment in front of a full-length mirror. Somehow, sitting in the midst of all the fabric and covered wheels, she felt like a float in the Rose Parade. Maybe she should try that signature Rose Parade wave the beauty queens used from their perches in those long, white Lincoln limo convertibles.
An usher brought word that all the guests had been seated, and it was time to line up. They moved across the deserted grounds to the sanctuary entrance. At that last moment, Joni had wanted desperately to rearrange the disorderly bouquet of daisies in her lap, but couldn’t do it. She had elected not to wear her arm splints, and that made it impossible to adjust anything. It was all she could do to steer her power chair.
Someone cracked open the door to the auditorium, and the majestic organ music swirled around them, stirring them. Way up front, she caught a glimpse of her longtime friend Steve Estes, who was helping officiate the wedding, standing with her pastor, John MacArthur. Even then, the sense of calm remained. She thought to herself, I’ve been more nervous speaking in front of churches half this size.
There was her daddy, stepping through the door to escort her, cutting quite a dashing figure in his gray morning suit and Windsor cravat. But he would have looked wonderful to her if he’d been wearing his usual attire of suspendered jeans and a flannel shirt. He beamed at her, the pride shining in his eyes. She was his youngest daughter, and his namesake. He smiled at her as if to say, You’re not my little pal anymore, not my cowgirl. And I’m glad!
She motioned to him with her head, and he bent down so she could speak into his ear, above the organ music. “I’ll go slow, so you can keep up with me!” He nodded, handing off one of his crutches to Judy and holding on to the armrest of her chair for support.
“Nervous?” he asked.
She smiled, shaking her head no, still feeling swathed in an unusual sense of calm.
“You’re marrying a good one, honey girl.”
Yes, she was!
As the last bridesmaid began to walk down the aisle, Joni inched her chair closer to the door, peering through the crack to see if she could catch a glimpse of Ken. Then she glanced down at her gown … and groaned aloud. Oh no! She had somehow managed to wheel over the hem, leaving a large greasy tire mark — an awful black tread on her white gown! Everyone had tried so hard, but as she looked down at her dress, it hung clumpy and uneven. Even though her chair had been spiffed up for the occasion it looked big as a Buick, with wheels and gears still visible through the wire mesh. And then there were those poor daisies, the bouquet lying off center in her lap, looking as if it had been thrown there.
She wasn’t a picture-perfect bride by any stretch. Did Ken realize that? Suddenly the old worry punctured her pre-ceremony calm. Did he see her for who she really was, or was he still looking through some rose-hued prism? How she hated those gr
ease marks! They invariably reminded her of stains on her own soul. She had often wondered, even after all God had accomplished through her life over the years, Does Christ see anything lovely in me? Yes, she had been justified before God—she knew that — but she was so far, so very far, from what He wanted her to be. She felt unworthy. And especially now, sitting at the beginning of the aisle, clad in gleaming white.
There were her friends from the office. From her Bible study group. And there was …
And then she saw him, waiting at attention with hands clasped behind him, looking tall and stately in his morning suit. But he, too, was craning his head, just like she was, peering down the aisle, looking for her.
Suddenly, in an instant, all the worry and self-loathing washed away. He was looking for her. Watching for her. Waiting for her. His bride. Her face suddenly grew hot, and her heart pounded in her chest. She had seen her beloved, and wells of emotion broke loose. Joy. Anticipation. An overwhelming longing to be with him. If only she could get up out of that chair and run to him, that good, kind, strong, ordinary-extraordinary man who loved her. Who wanted her.
The music crescendoed, and Joni and her dad began their arduous journey down the aisle, one hobbled by arthritis and the other paralyzed in a wheelchair.
In a strange moment of almost dual vision, Joni saw Ken the bridegroom and Jesus the Bridegroom at the same time. This is how it will be when we see Jesus. Overcome with longing. Overtaken with joy. We’ll catch a glimpse of Him and want to run to Him. Right out of this life and into the next one.
There was no way, even with rehearsals and programs, even having attended scores of weddings, she could have prepared herself for this. How she looked no longer mattered to her. She forgot all about the tire marks, the dispirited daisies, the clunky wheelchair, and the clumpy dress. In that moment, she didn’t feel ugly or unworthy. The love in Ken’s eyes, so intense it was almost hard to look at, washed it all away. In his eyes, she was the pure and perfect bride. His bride. That’s what he saw, and that’s what changed her.
On the way to the airport, she asked him if he had seen what a mess she had been. Had he noticed the tire marks, the grease stain, the disheveled daisies, and the way her gown had bunched up?
“No,” he said, shaking his head. “I thought you were gorgeous.”
Gorgeous. He had dismissed it all with a word — all her anxieties, regrets, and secret sorrows. He hadn’t seen a thing but his lovely bride. She had to laugh at herself in that moment, even if not out loud. The most beautiful parallels were shining in her mind as she thought of that first moment in heaven when she would see God’s Son. One look at His face, and all the worries and fears, all the disappointments and sadness of a lifetime lived in a broken world, would fade. Flee like darkness from a room when someone flips on a light. All the disgusting stains of earthly life would be purified away, dissolved by one look from the Bridegroom’s eyes. And in that day, too, her face would flush, her heart would pound, and it would all be more beautiful and joyful than she could have imagined in a million years.
For now, however, she had an earthly bridegroom to feel happy about.
And a honeymoon!
Ken carried her over the threshold of the 747 bound for Hawaii.
The flight attendants directed them to the first row of seats, away from the view of the few other passengers in first class.
Honeymooners. A silly word. And with all the special treatment — a surprise cake, Hawaiian leis, orange juice served in crystal glasses on a silver tray—everyone on board must have known it was their first full day as a married couple.
They snuggled into their seats, savoring the illusion of privacy, and rubbed noses and laughed. Ken had wondered if it would feel strange to be married, but it hadn’t felt strange at all. It felt like the most natural thing in the world.
They’d had a little talk the night before, acknowledging to each other that it wouldn’t be easy. Quadriplegia wasn’t easy. Even on a good day, it was difficult and challenging. And yes, there would be disappointments and heartaches and those inevitable times when one or both of them would wish, If only we could be “normal,” even for one night, even for one afternoon. There would be times when what they believed in their hearts and their heads would be challenged by the raw reality of trying to flesh it all out, with what might be diminished resources.
But this was their honeymoon, and God was smiling down at them. Ken lifted the glass of juice to Joni’s mouth and twined her fingers in his. In her mind, she could almost feel his hand, or at least remember what holding hands felt like. They shared secrets and told each other how wonderful their first night together had been.
“We’re ready to begin the movie.”
A flight attendant bent over Joni and closed her window shade. Ken pushed their seats back, slipped the headphones over her head, and stuffed a pillow in between them.
The cabin darkened, and the name of the movie flashed across their small viewing screen. Whose Life Is It Anyway?
“Oh no,” Joni groaned.
“What? Have you seen it?”
“No, but I know what it’s about,” she whispered. “Richard Dreyfuss plays a guy who gets his neck broken, becomes despondent, and argues with the hospital staff and his family to let him die.”
“Oh … well, that sounds like a lot of fun.”
“It’s pretty depressing stuff.”
A suddenly embarrassed flight attendant knelt beside their seats and began to apologize profusely. “And here it is your honeymoon! Of all the movies. Oh my gosh, I can’t believe this.”
After she left, they grinned at each other, slipped off the headphones, and tuned out the movie. Anyway, who was despondent about being paralyzed? Not them! The Richard Dreyfuss movie was all about an obsession with death. But this would be a week that was all about life. A new life together, a life the Father Himself had planned for them before the beginning of time. Hollywood didn’t have a clue how that could work, but it didn’t matter. They didn’t need Hollywood’s approval.
The five-hour flight passed quickly, even without the movie, and they arrived at their gate in Honolulu. Judy and Rana, a longtime friend and assistant, came down from their seats on the 747’s upper deck to help Joni get off the plane. Yes, this honeymoon would be a little different from the norm, with two helpers who had come along with them — women who would appear when needed and discreetly disappear just as quickly. Someone needed to teach Ken how to do everything, from giving Joni a bath to getting her dressed. The helpers would stay at their own hotel several blocks from the newlyweds, enjoying their own vacation.
Clothes changed and out on the beach, Ken kicked off his flip-flops, ran both hands through his thatch of thick black hair, clasped them behind his head, yawned, and stretched. The tails of his Hawaiian print shirt fluttered in the soft trade wind.
He definitely looked Hawaiian now. Every inch the handsome “island guy” she had spotted in Grace Community Church once upon a time.
With Joni parked on the Waikiki walkway in the sun, Ken walked down to the surf to stick his toes in the water.
“George, look who it is! It’s Joanie! I don’t believe this!”
Joni glanced up the sidewalk to see a family of three approaching. Did she know them? No … but they knew her! Through the years, she had experienced this time and again. People would recognize her from her books or her movie, and they’d approach her like they were old friends. It was understandable, and for Joni, no big deal. But this was different. She was on her honeymoon.
Ken, evidently delighted with the warmth of the surf, had waded out up to his knees.
“Well, I’ll be,” said George, reaching for his camera in his ABC Stores Aloha tote bag. “I’ll get a snapshot!”
Joni didn’t want her picture taken. Not then. But apparently, they couldn’t conceive of that. Or didn’t care. Sighing, she made an effort to smile at them and ask their names. Their son, in a bright red South Carolina Fighting Gamecocks T-shirt, s
tuck his hands in his pockets and looked away, apparently embarrassed by his parents accosting this stranger in a wheelchair.
“Oh, honey!” The woman in the brightly colored muumuu reached around Joni’s shoulder and pulled her toward her, squeezing her cheek against Joni’s. “We’re just so thrilled to meet you. We read your book and saw your movie, and my neighbors just aren’t going to believe this when we get home!”
“Hold still,” George commanded, waving his hand and staring through his camera’s viewfinder. “And Junior, get in the picture.”
“Please …” Joni protested. “I’d rather you didn’t.”
At this their faces fell. Stunned into momentary silence, they couldn’t believe what they were hearing. Not take a picture?
“You see,” Joni said in a low voice, “it’s my honeymoon” — as if sharing a secret.
“You’re married?” The woman, still holding Joni by the shoulders, pulled back to look at her from arm’s length. “Why, isn’t that wonderful! It’s wonderful, isn’t it, George?”
George, still disappointed over not getting a picture, mumbled something.
“Who is the lucky fellow?” She looked around for someone who might be Joni’s husband, ignoring the dark Asian man who approached in his Hawaiian shirt, shorts, and flip-flops.
The man and woman, who had evidently taken Ken for a Hawaiian tour guide, appeared just a little shocked when he stopped behind Joni’s wheelchair and leaned over to give her a warm, affectionate, and very proprietary hug.
“This is my husband,” Joni said proudly. “Ken Tada.” As she spoke, it struck her that this was one of the first times she’d had to introduce him in that way.
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