Joni & Ken

by Ken Eareckson Tada

  When these two speak, couples listen.

  Joni and Dr. Zhang Xu — he came to Christ through the Joni book and translated it into Chinese so others could be drawn to Jesus.

  Ken’s high school honors their retiring teacher (they’d better; he was Student Body President back in 1964).

  Giving Bibles in Cuba, along with wheelchairs

  Fly from Cuba to Peru to do the same thing — this couple likes to travel.

  At the White House for a stem-cell research press conference with President Bush

  It’s the dark back bedrooms where kids with disabilities are hidden — that’s where Joni and Ken want to be.

  Prayer is a huge part of Wheels for the World—yes, even in El Salvador.

  An enduring ministry needs a permanent home — the Joni and Friends International Disability Center.

  Joni and Ken inspecting the pediatric wheelchairs for our wheelchair trips. The chairs are manufactured by the inmates at Taft Prison.

  Anytime Ken sees a member of the U.S. military, he looks for ways to show his gratitude — this time, picking up the tab at McDonald’s.

  Chemo behind her and new hair coming in

  Twelve months later, a congratulations kiss — “no evidence of disease”

  Airports are their second home.

  Getting into the spirit of Family Retreats (the theme? “Come Fly with Me”)

  Enjoying down time at a Joni and Friends Family Retreat

  Kayaking — a Family Retreat first for a brave Joni and her oarsman

  “Do-si-do” your partner at, where else? Family Retreat!

  “Home is where you are”—even at Family Retreat.

  Ken and Jan on one of their Wild Adventures

  Ken caught his tuna!

  Ken snags the jackpot fish (Jan was bummed).

  Ken fly casts on a Montana lake — trout are hungry at sunset.

  Joni and Friends staff surprise the happy couple with a “30th Anniversary” party.

  Don’t smash it in her face please!

  Ken Tada

  Joni and Ken

  But nothing seemed to work anymore. Not muscle relaxers. Not Tylenol or Advil or Vicodin, or an even stronger drug than that.

  Joni hated taking medicines. Born of her mother’s and father’s sturdy stock, a little German, a little Scotch-Irish, with some Swedish thrown in for good measure, she had shared her family’s solid constitution. Through all her years, she had taken pride in the fact that she could push through any pain, relying on an aspirin or two at most.

  But now she was desperate for help. Sometimes frantic. The pain would envelop her in a suffocating red cloud, leaving no avenue for retreat.

  She had begun going to bed at eight o’clock rather than nine. And worst of all, she had to repeatedly wake up Ken in the middle of the night to turn her.

  So far, her doctors had been stumped as to the cause of her razor-edged agony. The best they came up with was “myofascial exacerbation” or “pelvic obliquity” — vague terms that always fell short of a real diagnosis. One doctor had even recommended a psychiatrist. Say what? The pain was in her mind? She didn’t much care for that thought at all. She wasn’t ready to add “mental” to her list of afflictions.

  As the months dragged on and the pain settled in like an unwelcome boarder, she began to lose hope that the situation would ever change.

  Lord, please help me get through this … or take me home!

  She hadn’t wanted to go there in her mind. But how could she not think about heaven without wanting release to go there? If she could just slip out of her body some moonlit night and make her way through the cool night air, up into the California sky to life, life on the other side of the stars.

  Her prayers had been constant. And sometimes, if she was honest, they were more like accusations than heartfelt pleas to the Father. At night, when the hurt held sleep at bay, wild images would come to mind. Body and soul, she was like an old sailing ship in distress, caught in a storm, her sails in tatters, her fragile timbers battered, groaning and creaking under the awful pressure of wind and waves. Worst of all, her confidence in Christ Himself was being rattled. As long as she could remember, she had held to her belief in the sovereignty of God — His wise and total control over all things. Now, the very doctrine that had always illuminated her life seemed like a dark thing, foreboding and even scary. Did God really intend to leave her in this chamber of horrors for years to come, with no escape? Was that His “perfect will” for her? Endless pain on top of hopeless paralysis?

  One night her fear had become suffocating. Ken had turned her on her side, situated her pillows, and then climbed into bed, trying to get some rest before his alarm rang at 5:30 a.m. for work. He had said nothing, not a word, moving mechanically, trying to stay half asleep so he could sleep again. Joni fell in and out of sleep until 2:00 a.m., when she was awakened by a searing pain. Was it in her neck? Wherever it had started, it migrated into her shoulder, the shoulder she was lying on. She twisted her head, seeking relief, but could only move in quarter inches, if that, to adjust her position.

  She couldn’t turn herself. She needed Ken. But how could she wake him up … again? He wasn’t getting adequate rest, and at that time, he still had a full slate of teaching and coaching responsibilities, parent-teacher meetings, and all the rest of it. But dear Lord, the pain! Here I am, she thought to herself, a quadriplegic lying in a contorted, stiff position, and the only part of me that I can feel, well, it hurts like crazy!

  She wanted to pray, but the words wouldn’t come. Instead, she simply whispered the name of her Lord, over and over.

  Jesus, Jesus, Jesus. Take a deep breath. Jesus, Jesus, Jesus.

  How could God allow this? How could she go on trusting in heaven among these splashes from hell? Sleeplessness kept her mind buzzing. God, You are the One who is allowing this. You are sovereign! That means You have screened this and decided You would allow it to touch me, hurt me, tear me up like this. How can You permit this terrible pain, in addition to my quadriplegia?

  Suffering was like fire. A little of it, in measured proportions, can bring strength to a life, pull a family together, draw a soul to Christ, accomplish good things. But let that fire break out of its bounds, and it can quickly become a destroyer.

  She remembered the night, years ago, when she and Ken had gone camping in the High Sierras. On a cold, star-strewn night, she had been sitting in her wheelchair, savoring the warmth and ambiance of a campfire. Ken had gone to fill up a canteen, and she had remained by the fire pit, listening to the sound of the wind in the pine trees and staring into orange-red coals.

  Suddenly, a gust of wind changed the whole picture. The flames vaulted higher, and Joni was enveloped in a choking cloud of smoke. Unable to wheel herself away or even to cry out, she could only sit and watch as the growing flames began to lick around her feet. Would she be seriously burned? What could she do?

  At that instant, Ken had returned, dropped the canteen, and ran to push her wheelchair out of the path of smoke and fire. The campfire, her friend, had turned on her and might have destroyed her.

  So it was with suffering. It had much potential for good — good she had already experienced in her life, her ministry, her marriage. But what if some dark night the campfire became an inferno? What then?

  APRIL 10, 1999

  As Joni suspected, Ken wasn’t getting nearly enough sleep. It wasn’t easy to be awakened out of a deep slumber in the wee hours of the morning, to turn Joni to a new position, and then to get back to sleep again, only to have it happen again and again. Sometimes sitting at his desk at school, he would find himself nodding off.

  He did feel sorrow for her pain. They’d already been through so much together. He hated with all his heart to see her suffer, and he knew it was every bit as awful as she described it. But if a series of elite medical specialists couldn’t find anything wrong, any source for the pain, what could he do? If God Himself had allowed this thing to go on and on, h
ow could he help? Where could he put his oar in the water? Most men were wired to be problem solvers; if something needed fixing, they’d find a way to fix it, to take care of it. But this was something he couldn’t fix, couldn’t repair, couldn’t stop, couldn’t figure out. He was sympathetic, yes. And God knew how much he cared. But how much mental and emotional energy could a person pour into an insoluble problem? After a while, you just tried to live with it. It became part of life’s landscape, like living in Siberia and stepping out the door every morning to feel the savage cold. Sooner or later your mind stopped saying, “Good grief, it’s really cold!” You just pulled your hat down over your ears, wrapped your scarf tightly, and lived with it.

  He had known from day one, back when they were fresh-faced kids in their thirties, that living with Joni’s quadriplegia would be difficult. But not this difficult. It had, frankly, pushed him right to the edge. But how could he complain? What was his inconvenience compared to what Joni suffered?

  The practical effect was that Ken and Joni began to find themselves on parallel tracks rather than traveling side by side on the same road. Joni realized one of the best treatments for pain was a good distraction, so she kept busy with ministry duties, writing books, and doing radio. Ken oriented himself more and more toward those areas of life where he had complete control: class preparation, grading papers, giving tests, and all that went with teaching. And after all, Joni had Judy. She had always had Judy. It made sense, didn’t it? Judy had been with Joni for decades, having answered God’s call on her life to help with the ministry. And Judy had a nursing background and was so much better at handling those particularly difficult challenges of Joni’s paralysis. Ken wasn’t even as “hands-on” as he had been in the earlier years of their marriage. It was just easier to leave it to Judy. Or Francie, Patti, or Carolyn — or whoever.

  They could still move in and out of each other’s worlds, but it wasn’t happening as often, or as joyfully, as it used to. Joni had always had her schedule of events, ever since he had known her. When they returned from their honeymoon, she had moved right back into her Joni and Friends calendar of activities, commitments, appearances, interviews — and on and on it went. Ken could be part of that scene, sometimes, and enjoy it. But it really wasn’t his universe. He had no say about it, no control over it. What he could affect were his lesson plans, his teaching, mentoring students, coaching sports, and correcting papers. And maybe getting away for a fishing trip now and then (with Joni’s blessing).

  Was it unreasonable for him to want a little time alone on weekends, getting away from all the stress and demands? On Sundays, he would go down to Burbank to help care for his ailing father, giving his mom a welcome break. Takeo Tada, who had wanted his son to be a hard-driving, type A businessman, could now be glad of the kind, gentle teacher his son had become. Toward the end, when his dad could barely even speak, Ken had sat in the backyard with him, singing hymns to his dad. And Takeo had finally responded, accepting Jesus as his Savior before he died.

  Back home, however, both Ken and Joni realized their relationship had changed.

  But then again, maybe it was inevitable. They had simply “settled in” to a new way of coping with the multiplied stress and pressure of her chronic pain.

  All her life, since her accident, Joni had learned to live around the problems she couldn’t solve. What she couldn’t change, she had to endure. She had also learned, early in their marriage, to temper those sky-high, unrealistic expectations of hers.

  She remembered the time in the first weeks of their marriage when she had just finished reading a riveting little book on prayer and couldn’t wait to tell Ken about it. Finally, they had the opportunity to talk as he helped her get ready for bed that evening, and she began to excitedly recount the new concepts and ideas that had throbbed in her thoughts all day long.

  Naturally, she had expected him to be as excited as she was.

  But he wasn’t.

  He hadn’t been rude or yawned or ignored her, or anything like that. But then again, he wasn’t sitting wide-eyed and awestruck on the edge of the bed either. He had been … polite. He had smiled and nodded, saying a couple of “uh-huh’s.” But it was obvious he wasn’t very interested.

  Offended, Joni retreated into silence — the last, best refuge for someone who couldn’t physically storm out of a room. Finally, Ken became aware of the change in atmosphere and asked what the matter was. After a bit of coaxing, she let it all spill out with a flood of tears.

  Now she had his full attention! Gently dabbing the tears from her face, he gave her full eye contact.

  “Oh, Ken,” she had said. “I know it’s no big deal. But I had been so excited all day to tell you about this book. I thought you’d be as excited as I was. When you didn’t even pay attention to me — well, I felt so disappointed.”

  He had been gentle and understanding that night, but it had led to a discussion on expectations. She knew she had a problem with getting her hopes up about things. But so did he! Especially when she didn’t ooh and aah over how many fish he’d snagged on one of his fishing trips. Nevertheless, he had said something that night that had stayed with her for years.

  “Joni, if I met all your expectations, you wouldn’t need God!”

  Much as she hated to admit it that night, she knew he had made an important point — one she would think about for a long time. If husbands and wives were all they expected each other to be, neither would feel much inclination to depend on the Lord.

  All of this thinking had led her to a firm conclusion: Christians should remember to place their ultimate hope in God Himself, whose love never varies, and who is always trustworthy, always kind, always faithful, and who never misses a single detail. And whatever life ends up being like on earth, our “threescore years and ten” down here is only the briefest of preliminaries to an eternity of love, worship, service, and unspeakable joy on the Other Side.

  So was their marriage in some kind of survival mode? So be it. It would survive. Neither Joni nor Ken had any doubt about that. But in the face of great pressure, they had found their own individual comfort zones where they could “go on with life.” They could continue to go along on those parallel tracks — tracks that remained geographically close and occasionally overlapped, but definitely went their own way.

  They could endure it. They’d endured worse. Besides, it wasn’t going to last forever.

  Even so … it got a little lonely sometimes.

  And it hadn’t always been that way …

  AUGUST 10, 1981

  They were out on the lake in the High Sierras. She sat in an old beach chair Ken had wedged in the bow of the rowboat, closed her eyes, and listened to the soft sounds of the wilderness. The water lapping against the side of the old rowboat, the whisper of the wind across the blue water, the distant cry of a hawk.

  Ken and Joni’s boat had been chained by the bow to her dad and mom’s boat, but now that her parents were occupied with their fishing, Ken had decoupled from them, allowing the boats to gently drift apart. Joni glanced at Ken sitting in the stern, concentrating on his fishing line. His thick black hair shone in the sunlight. His smile was ready, the corners of his eyes crinkled when he laughed, and as he had set up camp, anyone could see he was very strong. Judging from the way he had handled this improbable camping expedition so far — enduring the watchful, measuring eyes of her dad — he was patient too. His character seemed as clean clear through as the crystal lake on which they floated.

  He knows the Lord, she thought. And he loves my family. This is good. This is very good.

  They had been dating for a little more than a year and had become fast friends.

  Letting his line drift, Ken slid the oars into the water and gently rowed toward the middle of the lake. Then, laying the oars across his knees, he let them drift again. The boat turned slowly in the water until Ken’s head eclipsed the late-afternoon sun, making a golden glow around his face. Squinting, she couldn’t make out his featur
es, beyond his dark glasses and the white of his smile.

  “Want to hear something I’ve been writing in my head?” she asked him.

  “Sure,” he said. “Let’s hear it.”

  “OK, here goes. Stream of consciousness …

  “Oh, the High Sierras, white-capped spires of age,

  Fragrant alpine meadows, paintbrush, pine all praise

  The God who made you and your redwood trees.

  Speak your mystery to me, High Sierras, just for me.”

  “Beautiful,” he said. Then, without missing a beat, “I love you, Joni.”

  She could hear her parents’ voices across the water, and then her mother’s laugh. Her dad had probably fouled up his fishing line in the reel again. Joni smiled at Ken, but she didn’t answer.

  He spoke again. “I think I’ve loved you ever since I saw you over a year ago, that time you spoke at that banquet. I tried to meet you and get close to you, but I couldn’t get through all your admirers.”

  “Well, you know what?” she said. “I love you too.”

  They were quiet again, letting the wind take their boat where it wished, relishing the sweet wilderness silence, so far from the constant hum, buzz, and clatter of greater Los Angeles.

  Ken spoke up. “It could work, you know.”

  She looked up at him, a question in her eyes.

  “I’ve been watching Judy help you all these months. I know I could do the things she and others do for you. I could.”

  Yes, she thought. You could. And you would. But do you have any idea of what you’re getting into?

  “You’re talking marriage?” she asked.