By Mallory Mattingly
In a recent reflection on Thanksgiving, Joni Eareckson Tada revealed why the sound of horses makes her feel as if she’s 14 again and encourage her to look to eternity.
“It is my all-time favorite memory of this season. You see, when I was young and living on our farm in Maryland, our neighbor, Mr. Cauthorne, invited me to go on a fox hunt,” Eareckson Tada shared. “Boy, was I thrilled. So early on Thanksgiving morning, I saddled up and I rode my horse across the river to Mr. Cauthorne’s farm.”
“And when I arrived, I saw him with others on horseback there in the crowded paddock,” she recalled. “It was so exciting. He was sitting atop his big thoroughbred, sporting a red coat. The morning air was so sweet with the scent of horses and hay and hot cider and the sound of clattering hooves on cobblestone, fox hounds impatiently circling and barking.”
Related: Joni Eareckson Tada Explains How God ‘Had a Purpose’ for Her Paralysis
“And when the hunt master sounded his horn…We all got started! The dogs took up the chase, and we spurred our horses, cantering across the first pasture,” she continued. “And, oh, I can still feel my hands holding the reins, my knees squeezing the saddle. I can hear hooves tearing up the wet earth and the creaking of leather and dogs baying and horses nickering. I can smell the November air. Sharp and dank and earthy, the odor of leaves and mud. And I can feel the lightness in my stomach as we gallop toward a big stone wall.”
The whole time Eareckson Tada was on that fox hunt, they never captured a fox.
But this still remains one of her favorite memories because “it wasn’t about the fox at all.”
“It was about the experience, the excitement of it all,” she explained. “After the hunt, there was a big turkey dinner back at the farmhouse, and I still recall the movement of my horse under the saddle, the feel of gripping the reins. I haven’t ridden a horse or held reins or held anything for nearly 60 years, but that Thanksgiving memory truly doesn’t make me sad.”
Instead, that memory reminds Eareckson Tada of the hope of heaven.
She recalled Lamentations 3:21, which reads, “Yet this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope.”
“Our most beautiful recollections, all of them, gifts from God, should inspire hope! Hope and gratitude! Memories of days on our feet remind me of the Bible promise that one day I will have new hands, new fingers that’ll touch and pluck and pick and scrub and dig and even hold a pair of reins,” she said.
Eareckson Tada was left with quadriplegia when she was just 17 years old after she dove headfirst into the Chesapeake Bay, hit her head on the bottom and broke her neck.
Though she at first struggled to see God’s goodness in the accident, she since turned tragedy into a mission to help others who live with a disability.
“We envision a world where every person with a disability finds hope, dignity, and their place in the body of Christ,” the Joni & Friends foundation page reads.
What an incredible reminder that no matter what physical limitations we experience on Earth, God will renew our bodies in heaven. That’s truly something to be grateful for.
Read Next: Joni Eareckson Tada Says ‘Disability is Not a Curse’: All are ‘Image Bearers’ of God
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