Joni & Ken

by Ken Eareckson Tada

  Ken Tada changed, right before her eyes. Yes, Ken was Ken was Ken. He had always been strong, loving, kind, and true — and you could almost make his qualities into a Boy Scout motto and add “thrifty, clean, and reverent.” This was the man who would come home from a day of teaching at school, and if some girl in his class had a plunging neckline, he would tell Joni about it. He would say, “I looked, Joni. I’m so sorry I did. I feel badly about it.” God bless a man who would tell her things like that, so open and true.

  So he was the same, but somehow not the same. He was becoming a new Ken. Or maybe more like the old Ken, the once-upon-a-time Ken she had married thirty years ago. The Ken who had looked into her eyes out on that boat in the lake in the High Sierras and said, “I love you, Joni. This could work, you know!”

  In one sense, the cancer really had pushed him over the edge. But the edge wasn’t what she had thought or feared. Rather than falling into despair, Ken had fallen into Christ, into a complete, head-over-heels, no-holds-barred dependence on Jesus.

  He had always been there for her, but now … now he was stepping up.

  What had happened to Ken was no great mystery.

  At some point during the week after the cancer diagnosis, a thought he had fended off and shielded himself from finally took hold in his conscious mind.

  And he looked at it, eyeball-to-eyeball.

  This could be a death sentence. I might lose her.

  Back in 2003, his mother had been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, and she had lived out her final six months in their home. The images came back to him — his mother in bed, the weakness, the suffering, death closing in, the final breath.

  Not long after Joni’s diagnosis, he remembered standing at the sink in the ministry’s lunchroom, washing out his coffee cup, when the awful reality of it suddenly swept over him. Quite unexpectedly, he began to weep, tears coursing down his cheeks. Whoa! He hadn’t seen that coming. It was like one of those rogue waves at the beach that knocks you off your feet when your back is turned.

  He had never told Joni about the incident — men needed to be strong, right? — but one of Joni’s friends passing by the kitchen had seen him there at the sink, one hand over his eyes, his shoulders heaving. “Ken is having a meltdown,” she had whispered to Joni.

  It wasn’t surprising to her. Ken may have been very courageous, but he was also tender. It touched her heart to think he would keep up a strong, positive front while he was in her presence but would break down in moments when he thought he was alone and unobserved.

  For Ken, the prospect of losing Joni to cancer had changed everything, making all the baggage relating to her disability seem minor. Quadriplegia? It was so minor it was hardly worth mentioning. Chronic pain? Oh, my, they could deal with that. The major thing now was saving her life. As John Eldredge had said, Ken had a battle to fight and a beauty to rescue. Drawing deeper on divine resources, Ken took his caregiving skills into overdrive. He was at Joni’s side through her mammogram, biopsy, mastectomy, recovery, and chemotherapy. He was her constant companion for countless hospital visits and oncology appointments, and her counselor as they sought out second and third opinions. He was on the phone with doctors, haggling with insurance companies, and keeping a meticulous record of everything in his spiral notebook. He was on this!

  The change was obvious to everyone, and especially to Joni. And cancer or no cancer, she thought it was one of the best things that had happened in their almost thirty years of marriage.

  She had always, always felt loved. But now she felt treasured. Cherished. Even beautiful.

  Ken remembered the words the Lord had spoken to him in Montana as he sat on the rock in the sunshine by a dam. Joni is the most precious gift I have given you. Take care of her! Now he realized what that had been all about. God had been preparing him, getting him ready, calling him into a deeper, stronger, closer walk with Himself. He had needed to be ready for what was coming.

  Everything else in his life, all that he had been doing to fill his days and occupy his time, suddenly seemed insignificant. How good the Lord had been to prompt him to retire from teaching and coaching back in 2004. He could be with her full-time now. Her health, saving her life, was Job One.

  Sitting in the backyard, in one of those quiet hours of listening to God he had been cultivating, he had an overwhelming sense that this was his true calling. This was what God wanted him to do, and everything else was secondary. He was supposed to step up and take care of Joni in a way beyond anything he’d done before. He needed to oversee her cancer journey and be her advocate and help. He needed to stand between her and the many demands on her life. Who else would? She needed him to be strong. More than that, he just wanted to be with her. At home. At the doctor’s office. In the van. At work. In her travels. Every day seemed incredibly precious.

  And he would be with her. From now on, he was going to be there, no matter what. Wherever this cancer journey took them, he would be there. She would never, never have to wonder about that again.

  One night, as they were in bed, Ken said to her, “I have it all figured out, Joni. I want to live one day longer than you do. That’s all. Just one day.”

  “But that wouldn’t work, would it?” she said.

  “Why not?”

  “Because if you had a stroke or cancer or a heart attack and lived only one day longer than I did, you wouldn’t be strong enough to take care of me. I need you to stay strong.”

  He knew she was right. He was in his midsixties now, but he needed to stay strong. Stay alive. Stay ready. He needed to take care of himself and keep working out so he would always, always be there for her. He needed to be strong enough to lift her, strong enough to carry her. That was God’s plan for him, and how good it was to know God’s plan! What had he just read in J. B. Phillips’s translation of Romans 12:1 – 2? “Let God re-mould your minds from within, so that you may prove in practice that the plan of God for you is good, meets all his demands and moves towards the goal of true maturity.”

  Lord, he whispered, Your plan for Joni and me is good. I receive it with all my heart.

  For Judy Butler, the New Ken represented a jarring change.

  She, too, had experienced a calling in life to come alongside Joni, and she had been with her years before Ken ever came on the scene. Judy first met Joni back in the late 1970s when Billy Graham made a movie about Joni’s life. She was working for the Graham organization and had been asked to assist on the set during the filming of the Joni movie. After the film was completed, Joni asked her to help set up Joni and Friends, a ministry that would reach out to disabled people like her. Through thick and thin, Judy Butler had remained steady to God’s calling on her life — which was to help Joni fulfill her vision to reach the world’s disabled for Christ.

  Who, then, was this new husband of hers who suddenly wanted to take over everything? He hadn’t said a word about it to anyone; he was suddenly just there. Everywhere. Now it was the New Ken calling the shots about how the girls got Joni up in the morning, how the cleaning routines ought to go, and about Joni’s work schedule.

  Just that morning he had told Judy, “I don’t want Joni traveling so much. I want her to be relaxing at home more, conserving her strength.” And what’s more, the New Ken wanted to be with Joni on the weekends and drive the van himself when she had to go into work.

  This last development cheered Joni’s heart beyond words. In their December commutes, she and Ken had sung every Christmas carol they knew. In fact, the daily trip to and from the office became one of the best times of the day. Joni now regarded their van as a little “traveling holy of holies.” No dark demon of harassment or fear would ever dare trouble them on the freeways because they were filling up their rolling sanctuary with praise, prayer, and singing.

  It also gave them private time together.

  For much of their marriage, from their honeymoon on, alone time had been at a premium. The only time they had in privacy was at night, after Judy or som
e of Joni’s other helpers had put her to bed and said good night. Early the next morning, a new crew would be at the house, ready to get Joni up and prepare her for the day.

  That hadn’t left much time for anything approaching a private conversation. And if one of them had spoken sharply or hurt the other’s feelings, it might not get talked about before bedtime, if then. But now they were assured of forty minutes each morning and evening to iron out issues together and resolve whatever had been unresolved.

  All of this change, however positive as it may have been for Joni and Ken, was just a bit much for Judy. Once, as she was attempting to adjust to these multiple new realities, she had turned on Ken in frustration, right in front of Joni.

  “Ken,” she said, “you’ve got all these ideas now about how things should be done, but don’t you realize that for twenty-eight years you just weren’t there?”

  Joni shot a quick glance at Ken, expecting him to react and to shoot back, “I was too there!” But he didn’t. Quietly and simply he said, “You’re right, Judy. I wasn’t there. But I’m going to be there now.”

  When Judy saw that he really meant it, that this was “the new normal,” and that he was really in it for the long haul, she began to relax. After all those years of being on call 24-7, it was something of a relief. She found herself with more time to do things and go places than she could remember having for years. It would be a new and adventuresome era for her too.

  With Ken stepping in and assuming responsibility for Joni’s care, a number of new horizons seemed to open up. As Judy stepped back from what had been her primary role, Ken and Joni brought in a whole new group of willing, cheerful women who wanted to help with Joni’s care. There were new faces and skilled hands to get her ready in the morning and put her in bed at night. It dawned on Joni that she had probably leaned too much on Judy for too many years. It had seemed so logical, because Judy had always known how and where to push, shove, pull, tighten, and massage to help Joni manage her pain. But others could learn those things too, and now there were “fresh troops” on board to keep up with all the routines and to ease the burden on Ken. One night when Joni, Ken, and Judy were looking over the 2012 proposed schedule, Joni asked him, “How many trips do you want to go on with me this year?”

  “All of them,” he said.

  Joni and Judy looked at each other and smiled. This really was a new reality, and it made Joni’s spirit soar.

  She remembered the time, early in their marriage, when he had come home from a fishing trip, settled contentedly into his favorite chair, and sighed, “This is great. I’ve really looked forward to coming home!”

  He would have been surprised, she was sure, if he could have known how much that one little comment had warmed her newlywed heart. She wanted their home to be a place of refreshment for him, a place where he liked to spend his time. And most of all, she wanted him to be happy and at home with her.

  And now he was saying he wanted to travel with her all the time. That meant she would never “leave home,” because home was wherever Ken was.

  On Sundays after church, Joni’s usual routine had been to switch over into Judy’s van while Ken took off on his own. The two women would do a little shopping, pick up some food, and maybe call Ken from the deli counter to see if he wanted anything special for dinner. Later, Judy would take her home and put her in bed. Not anymore.

  Now, Ken was there with her. Every Saturday. Every Sunday. Cooking dinners together. And on Monday morning, they would drive together to the office, sometimes talking, sometimes praying out loud, and sometimes singing together, but always enjoying each other’s company.

  In previous days, Sunday afternoons were long for Joni, as she tried to find things to do away from home and stay out of Ken’s domain. So she would go shopping, whether she needed anything or not, check out the sales, or just go somewhere with Judy and have coffee.

  Now she was home on Sunday. Home with Ken. A home that had never been sweeter. They might dig in the front yard, prepare some new dish together, or relax on the back patio with a couple of books. On rainy days, Ken would get a fire going, and the two of them would just sit and look out at the rain.

  Back in 2003, in that spiritual watershed year for Ken, he had committed to reading through the Bible every year with a friend, and they would meet once or twice a week to talk about what God had been showing them. Joni had been happy about that development, but thought to herself, Gee, I wish I could do that with him. I wish we could read together and talk about the Lord and what He’s doing in our lives. But she didn’t mention it to him, and she certainly didn’t want to derail him from this new “wild at heart” adventure of growing strong in Christ.

  But then Ken’s friend left the country on an extended trip, and one day Ken said to Joni, “Would you like to do this Bible reading thing with me?”

  Would she! It began on that morning and has continued ever since. Every day they read several chapters from the Bible and talked about what God was showing them, and it became the best hour of the day. Even in times of great pain and suffering, when their marriage was under such awful strain, they would take the time to open God’s Word together. For Joni, it was like a flicker of hope, a foreshadowing that their relationship would eventually heal and that a new closeness would still be possible … someday, somehow. And so it was.

  She remembered the verse she had memorized as a child in her King James Bible: “So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God” (Romans 10:17). It was true: reading the Bible together every day, come hellish pain or high water, had kept the spark of faith alive in both of their hearts.

  CHAPTER NINE

  UNFATHOMABLE DEPTHS

  Joy runs deeper than despair.

  CORRIE TEN BOOM

  SEPTEMBER 6, 2010

  Halfway through her chemo regimen, Joni had a chance to speak to the ministry staff about her progress. In the middle of her talk, she pulled off her blonde wig, revealing a bald scalp. Several people gasped, and then the room became very silent.

  “This is what cancer has done,” she told them. “And it’s humbling. You might say it has exposed me to myself in a new way. I can see my limitations more than I ever have before, which just reminds me of how deeply I depend on Jesus right now. When you think about it, that’s not a bad place to be.”

  Even so, the battle for Joni’s life became very intense at times.

  Paralysis.

  Crushing pain on top of paralysis.

  Cancer on top of crushing pain.

  Radical mastectomy on top of cancer.

  Chemotherapy on top of mastectomy.

  Pneumonia on top of chemotherapy.

  And intense spiritual warfare with dark, malevolent spirits on top of it all.

  Ken Tada thought back to earlier days of their marriage, when “all he had to worry about” was Joni’s paralysis. It reminded him of what the Lord had said to Jeremiah after the prophet had been complaining about some issues of injustice in his country:

  “So, Jeremiah, if you’re worn out in this footrace with men, what makes you think you can race against horses?

  And if you can’t keep your wits during times of calm, what’s going to happen when troubles break loose like the Jordan in flood?”

  JEREMIAH 12:5 MSG

  Good question! In other words, “If you can’t handle a few skirmishes with the enemy today, how are you going to get through all-out war?”

  And the summer of 2010 had certainly been all-out war.

  Which inevitably made Ken think of his middle name, Takeshi, and its tie to the samurai of his ancestral homeland. Those fabled warriors of old had confronted and confounded their adversaries with light cavalry, creative battle formations, short-range archers, and their trademark swords, curved and razor sharp. Ken, too, was determined to use every weapon God placed in his hands. Patience. Kindness. Vigilance. Perseverance. Hope. Prayer. Faith. Love. Whatever it took.

  A World War II history buff, Ken knew t
hat in every war a time comes when you have to throw everything you have into battle, risking everything, holding nothing in reserve. Isn’t that what General Eisenhower did on D-day? June 6, 1944, might have easily ended in disaster. He might have logically postponed the attack, as many were no doubt counseling him to do. After all, the high seas and the weather over Normandy looked terrible for an attempted amphibious landing.

  Men would be lost in the landing craft before they ever got to the beaches. Husbands, brothers, and sons. But if Eisenhower didn’t act, how many more would be lost in a war that could drag on for years?

  Ike’s decision to press ahead, to throw all his resources into the effort, changed everything. Changed the world. Before the troops had set sail, he addressed them, saying, “You are about to embark upon the Great Crusade, toward which we have striven these many months. The eyes of the world are upon you … I have full confidence in your courage, devotion to duty, and skill in battle.”12

  Ken knew that this was “it.” This was D-day. This was Normandy. This was the battle of their lives. God had chosen Joni for him, and him for Joni, and the moment had come to throw everything he had into this fight with cancer. It was time for Ken the warrior to step up as he had never stepped up before. Joni needed him, and believing with all his heart in the sovereignty of God, he knew the Lord had called him to this very moment, to “such a time as this” before he had been born. Eldredge’s words had never been more true. He had an adventure to live, a battle to fight, and a beauty to rescue.

  But it was so devastating to see Joni suffer. To watch her struggle to breathe. To see her face contorted with pain. Able-bodied people suffered pain too, but at least they could identify where the pain was coming from. Quadriplegics, however, with internal communication lines scrambled or shattered, couldn’t always identify the source or even the direction of the pain. And when pain isn’t coming from “somewhere,” it’s coming from everywhere. Instead of feeling a lance of pain in the shoulder, for instance, it’s more like being immersed in pain. It’s nowhere and it’s everywhere.