One phrase from the book seemed to lodge like a burr in his memory.
Eldredge had written that men long to have “an adventure to live, a battle to fight, and a beauty to rescue.” Ken wasn’t sure what that really meant — to him, anyway — but he couldn’t quite let it go either. Could this be something God was speaking to him, right then, at that very crossroad in life? Maybe. He couldn’t rule it out.
Ken hadn’t been looking for, or felt that he needed, some new statement of “life purpose.” At age fifty-five those things were supposed to have been settled years ago. Something Eldredge had said, though — about life as a man — had stuck with him. Maybe it was because he’d been planning on retiring from teaching and coaching that coming fall. The worldwide ministry of Joni and Friends had been steadily expanding, and it made sense to serve in that organization, making himself more available to travel with Joni.
Even so, strange, unsettling things can happen in a man’s psyche when he contemplates decoupling from a job he has held for thirty-two years. And it was more than a job; it was a huge chunk of his identity. Teacher, counselor, mentor, coach. He loved his students, and they had loved him. What would it be like to let go of his career and just walk away? Would he feel lost? Adrift? Maybe a little lonely?
That summer, Jan had invited him on a weeklong fly-fishing trip. It would just be eight guys, hanging out in a rustic lodge on Trude Lake in the Caribou-Targhee National Forest near the border of Idaho and Wyoming. During the week they would fly-fish and spend some time going through Eldredge’s Wild at Heart together.
Ken had never tackled that kind of fishing before. He felt more comfortable on a tuna boat. Fly-fishing? He didn’t really want to go, and dithered about making a decision. There was plenty to do at the ministry and with assisting Joni. Anyway, most of his favorite fishing trips had been out on the wide, blue Pacific, and he felt ambivalent about learning to use a fly rod — and all that fancy casting. Saltwater fishing … now that had an appeal. Hooking into a yellowtail, sea bass, or maybe an albacore tuna — that was fishing! And studying the Eldredge book some more? Well, that was fine. But hadn’t he already read it? Wasn’t he already getting great teaching at church? In the end, however, he packed his bags for Idaho. But mostly because Jan had really seemed to want him to come, and Joni had urged him to do it. She had assured him she had plenty of willing helpers for the week, and that she would be fine.
“Anyway,” she had said, “I want you to go, Ken. God might have something for you there.”
Well, how do you argue with that?
To Ken’s surprise, Jan had invited John Eldredge himself to Trude Lake that week to walk the group of eight men through the pages of his book. Jan had certainly kept that development under his hat! Admittedly, it was just a little more dynamic to have the author himself talking about the concepts in his book, and about how they came to be put down on paper, than just bandying things about with a group of guys and a study guide. It wasn’t every day you could read a book and then ask questions directly of the author.
At the close of one of his lunchtime sessions, Eldredge had encouraged each of the men to get alone for a few hours to see if God had anything to say to them. After that, they would get back together and talk about what they had heard.
A few hours? Ken wasn’t entirely comfortable with that. What if he didn’t hear anything? He liked the time alone, and he valued the opportunity to pray, but what was supposed to happen? What would John MacArthur think of this “listen for God’s voice” thing? Anyway, what was he supposed to hear? A voice speaking out of the air, or maybe a burning bush appearing before him?
He didn’t see any burning bushes that day or hear any voices from on high. But he’d had some success with the fly rod on that trip, and he was catching on to the Wild at Heart theme that he had an adventure to live, a battle to fight, and, yes, a beauty to rescue.
The adventure? Well, this was certainly a new chapter of life for him. Everything would change that fall, and his years of teaching and coaching football would soon be in the rearview mirror. He would have his own office at the ministry, and some new responsibilities to chew on.
And the battle to fight? Hmm. Those dark, shadowy fingers that had once pulled him backward into depression and thoughts of suicide seemed to be in the rearview mirror too. But it was best to stay vigilant. Someone had said — Eldredge, or maybe John MacArthur — that the armor described in Ephesians 6 covered everything except the back. In other words, it was never a good strategy to turn your back on an Adversary who wants to destroy you.
Ken had always had excellent teaching, ever since he came to Christ. He knew all about the concept and the reality of spiritual warfare. But John Eldredge seemed to make it come alive. Up to that point, it just hadn’t dawned on him that every day he was actually in the middle of a battle, and had been for years now. It somehow hadn’t occurred to him that a relentless Enemy was out to destroy, or at least cripple, Ken Tada, robbing him of his joy and his usefulness as a servant of Christ. He thought back to that long-ago night when he first wrestled with the idea of suicide, the night he imagined holding a gun to his head. He shuddered when he remembered the book he had been reading: Rosemary’s Baby. No wonder I was plagued by thoughts of death! And now? At this crossroad season of his life, it was only reasonable to assume that the warfare would escalate. That was a new and sobering thought.
An adventure to live, a battle to fight … and a beauty to rescue.
His beauty. Joni. And what a beauty she was. Inside and out.
But did she need rescuing?
MAY 2004
Ken was just a little taken aback by the question.
He’d been in the van with Dr. Zhang Xu, a quadriplegic guest from China who was touring with his mother, seeking to understand American ways of dealing with people with disabilities. Ken had offered to drive him to an appointment in Los Angeles, and he had just merged onto Interstate 5 when the question came.
“Do you have a Japanese name?”
“Japanese name?” Ken said. “Well, I guess it would be my middle name. Takeshi.”
“Ah,” said his guest, “and what does it mean?”
“It means a knight. A warrior.”
In the moment Ken spoke those words, a memory came rushing back into his mind, a memory so vivid that it left him stunned. Glancing up quickly, his eyes met Dr. Zhang Xu’s eyes in the rearview mirror. He had been watching the change of expression wash across Ken’s face in that same mirror. Did this gracious Chinese man have any idea what his question had just triggered in Ken’s soul?
Ken had just come from another Wild Adventure retreat in Montana where the men had discussed John Eldredge’s strong assertion that God would give a man his real name. His earthly father would give him one name, and other people through the years might give him mocking, belittling, demeaning names. But God would give a man his true and authentic name, a name no one could ever take from him. In a mysterious passage in the book of Revelation, Jesus spoke about giving His people “a white stone with a new name written on it, known only to the one who receives it” (Revelation 2:17). Eldredge had urged his readers to seek out that name, the name that genuinely reflects who a man (or woman) was destined to be.
And what God was telling Ken at that very moment, driving a van on Interstate 5 under the smiling, watchful eyes of Dr. Zhang Xu, was that He had already given Ken his real name.
Takeshi. Warrior.
It was a name he had been born with but had never embraced … until now. His dad might have been disappointed in him or dismissive of him, and might have concluded that his son would never “measure up.” But the heavenly Father knew Ken’s true identity. Who he really was at the core of his manhood.
And now was the time to step into that identity. To own it.
To be the man God had called him to be from birth.
Part of the challenge of living all those years with disability had been Joni’s fragile health. Life expectancy s
tatistics for people with her level of injury weren’t what you’d call encouraging.
In her private prayer times during those days, Joni had prayed constantly and with great intensity that God would stave off any new injuries or illnesses. It wasn’t so much that she feared additional suffering, though that prospect was daunting enough. What Joni dreaded most was the additional strain it would put on her relationship with Ken. He seemed maxed out as it was, dealing with her chronic pain issues in addition to all the daily demands of living with a quadriplegic. The pain patches Joni had been trying hadn’t seemed to do much for the pain, but they had given her a nasty side effect: gnawing, clawing anxiety. New fears knifed into her thoughts; old fears took on a sharper, serrated edge.
And she very much feared an injury!
How would Ken handle it if he suddenly found himself juggling a whole new set of challenges on top of everything else? Would it send him into a tailspin? And what would happen in their marriage? Sometimes it seemed as though they were barely maintaining things as it was.
Lord, things are hard enough at home, Joni prayed. Please keep me from breaking a bone. Please dispatch a few extra angels to protect me!
It was a little ritual Joni carried out — a game to bolster her and her husband: “Can you believe it?” she’d say, “I’ve made it this far without breaking any bones. Well, except for that broken neck thing.”
But sooner or later it was bound to happen.
And it did.
It was the perfect storm of untimely, inconvenient factors — small occurrences that, together, brewed the winds of gale-force danger.
Joni and Judy were scheduled to fly to Pennsylvania with Dr. Zhang Xu and his mother. Judy was one of the most competent, all-around-capable people Joni had ever met, but — one woman responsible for two quads and an elderly mother who spoke no English? It was a disaster looking for a place to happen.
Ken was to drive them to Los Angeles International Airport and see them off on the initial leg of a journey to Baltimore’s BWI Airport. Joni wheeled into the back of the van, navigating past a somewhat alarming stack of suitcases. How in the world would they get all of that stuff checked in?
Ken — and Joni too — would have done well to heed an old Tada family maxim at that moment: in a time of extra stress, don’t do things differently. It’s a thought, Ken later reflected, that probably should have been in the Bible. Solomon may have touched on it when he wrote, “The plans of the diligent lead to profit as surely as haste leads to poverty” (Proverbs 21:5).
“Ken, can I please sit facing forward? You can tie me down safely and …”
“Forget it!” Ken interrupted her, clearing some of the luggage out of her way. But he hadn’t meant to sound quite that harsh. It was almost a bark, and he’d really been trying to soften his tone. Not the best way to send her off on a trip, he reminded himself. “I’m sorry, Joni,” he said, “but it’s just not safe.”
“Yes, it is,” she insisted. “It is safe. I’ll be fine. Please? I’ll just back my wheelchair up against the pile of luggage on the seat, and you can secure my tie-downs to my big wheels. I don’t want to ride sideways. I want to be able to talk to Rainey.” Rainey was a close friend who served on Joni’s ministry team.
Ken sighed and looked down for a moment at the driveway bricks, shaking his head. He didn’t like it. It didn’t feel right. But what should he do? They had already had some verbal standoffs that week, and he knew he’d been insistent (well, stubborn) in arguing his point of view. But this time he wasn’t being obstinate; he was just worried. He knew very well Joni didn’t like sitting sideways in the van. It was hard to see things. She liked to look out the front window. She wanted to talk to Rainey.
“Oookaaay,” he huffed, helping her back into the cramped space. Within a couple of minutes, he had secured both tie-downs to her back wheels, stretching them extra tight to make sure she was secure. With Judy, Dr. Zhang Xu, and his mother in another van, they set off, with Ken driving and their friend Rainey riding shotgun. It would be Rainey who would drive Judy’s van back after saying good-byes at curbside.
The traffic was thick where the 101 freeway merges into the 405, supposedly one of the busiest intersections in America.
And that’s where it happened.
It was one of several things L.A. drivers had to watch for almost every day on the freeways. You could, for instance, experience a motorcycle roaring at high speed between two clogged lanes of cars. And you could also be clipping along at sixty or seventy miles an hour with seemingly open road in front of you when a forest of brake lights would suddenly materialize right in front of you. Ken, who had negotiated those freeways since he was sixteen, had just hit the accelerator to merge into a fast-closing slot in the carpool lane. But in almost the same instant, the car ahead of them unaccountably slammed on its brakes.
“Hold on!” Ken yelled, jamming the brake pedal and leaving rubber on the freeway.
His quick reflexes had avoided a potentially nasty crash, but the sudden stop threw four heavy suitcases against the back of Joni’s wheelchair, rotating the back tires and tipping the entire chair over on its side. In an instant, Joni was dangling, half her body on the floor, and half secured by the chest strap to the chair. She looked down. Her leg was at an odd angle, bent underneath her. She struggled to call out, but the strap was choking her.
“Ken, Joni’s on the floor!” Rainey screamed as she scrambled to unlock her seat belt and climb over the passenger seat. “I can’t stop here,” Ken yelled. “I’m in the middle of traffic! Let me get over.”
Within seconds, they were on the shoulder of the freeway. Ken leaped out and ripped open the side door. “Oh no!” he cried when he saw his wife lying twisted with her wheelchair nearly on top of her.
Ken and Rainey shoved aside luggage, lifted Joni as carefully as they could, and maneuvered her back into the wheelchair. As traffic roared by them, they waited to see if she had sweats, a pain signal that Joni’s paralyzed body gave off in the absence of feeling.
Rainey looked up into Ken’s eyes. “Should we head back home?”
“No!”
Joni’s reply was insistent, and she had “that look” in her eyes. Ken knew why, and knew how hard it would be to argue with her. She was thinking of Dr. Zhang Xu, all the way from China, and his itinerary, so carefully planned and confirmed. She was also thinking of her speaking engagement that weekend at Lancaster Bible College’s graduation. She didn’t want to go home. She didn’t want to retreat. She wanted to plow ahead, figuring “it would all work out somehow.”
Ken, still badly shaken from seeing Joni lying like a rag doll on the van floor, wasn’t so sure. Not at all.
“Joni, we should wait,” he said. “We should really wait to see if you get sweats. Something might be broken.” Rainey, pale and wide-eyed, nodded her head while wiping tears from Joni’s cheeks. So they waited two, three, five minutes with nothing happening. No sweats. No clamminess. No sign of elevated heart rate or blood pressure. Ken would have liked to give it another ten minutes, but Joni knew Judy would be worried if they didn’t show up at the departing flights curb. It would throw everything into confusion.
“Let’s go, Ken,” Joni said. “Please? I’m OK. Really.”
So Ken secured everything again, with Joni facing in a safe direction, and merged back into traffic. Even when they were at curbside check-in at the airport, however, while unloading luggage, Ken kept an eye on Joni’s forehead to check for “sweats.”
“You OK?” he asked.
“So far, so good.” Her answer was just a little too bright. Definitely forced. She was badly shaken, and he knew it.
Ken felt like giving a savage kick to one of the too-large suitcases he kept stacking on the curb. Some warrior he had been! So much for “rescuing a beauty”! He’d let himself get talked out of taking proper care of Joni, when he knew it was foolish. He felt sick to his stomach with stress and regret. It was his responsibility, and he had let her dow
n … again.
An hour later at the gate, just before Dr. Zhang Xu, his mother, Judy, and Joni were to board, Ken was still feeling Joni’s forehead with the backside of his hand.
“Ken, I’m all right! Honest.”
Part of Joni wished he would let it go, but mostly she felt touched, and warmed by how solicitous and protective he was acting toward her. Ken, who had never in his life been able to disguise what he was feeling, had deep concern written all over his face and seemed genuinely reluctant to let her take off without him. There was no “passing her off to Judy to be on his way.” He was definitely hovering over her.
Joni’s body, however, gave no indication that anything was badly hurt. Even so, at preboarding, he knelt down to look into her eyes.
“You can still back out of this,” he said with urgency in his voice. “It’s not too late.”
Joni took a deep breath, shook her head no, kissed him goodbye, and powered her wheelchair down the Jetway.
As the plane barreled down the runway and lifted into the air, Joni could sense the cabin pressure changing.
And just that quickly, something else changed too.
Her forehead suddenly felt clammy. Really clammy. Judy, sitting next to Joni, with Dr. Zhang Xu and his mother seated further back in the plane, noticed immediately. She ran her hands over Joni’s legs, squeezing here and there, “Does this cause sweats? … Does this?” She lifted the left pant cuff; right above the ankle, Joni’s leg was beginning to redden and swell. That was a break!
She looked up at Joni, worry in her eyes. And Joni was worried too. “What’ll we do?” she asked. Both of them knew she was already at risk — a quadriplegic sitting still in a seat for the five-hour cross-country flight. But now, if her body had begun to respond to some serious injury … well, who knew what would happen?
“Can you help us please?” Joni stopped a flight attendant, briefly explaining the situation. Within minutes, the flight crew had her leg propped up and covered with bags of ice. “Thank God I’m in the bulkhead seat and there’s room to do this!” she said to Judy.
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