Suffering? Joni Eareckson Tada Reminds Us of This Truth…
By Movieguide® Contributor
Joni Eareckson Tada knows what it’s like to be afraid, but she also knows what it’s like to trust in Jesus in the midst of fear.
Eareckson Tada has been a quadriplegic since her late teens, and she didn’t think cancer would have to be another battle she would fight. But that changed with a breast cancer diagnosis. Amid her fear and anxiety, she turned to God.
“The night before I took my first round of chemotherapy, I read Jesus’s words in John 21:18. Now, He’s talking to Peter, and He says to him, ‘Someone else will dress you and lead you where you do not want to go.’ Well, the next morning, Ken dressed me and took me where I did not want to go, a dreaded chemo clinic,” she explained.
Eareckson Tada was first diagnosed with breast cancer in 2010 and underwent mastectomy and chemotherapy before being declared cancer-free. She was diagnosed again in 2018.
READ MORE: HOW JONI EARECKSON TADA IS GIVING PEOPLE HOPE IN 2025
“As I watched the IV drip poison into my veins…the Bible already had a remedy for my jittery nerves. Hebrews 13:5-6 God has said, ‘Never will I leave you. Never will I forsake you, so we say with confidence the Lord is my helper I will not be afraid,’” she said.
As treatment continued, Eareckson Tada relied on God. She knew that Jesus had already walked the road of suffering so that she would not walk alone.
“I will not be afraid because the most godforsaken man who ever lived, Jesus Christ, endured our anxieties and afflictions so that He in turn might say to you and me ‘Do not be afraid, I will never leave you I will never forsake you.’”
Eareckson Tada was declared cancer-free for a second time in 2019.
“…the Lord was gracious and heard the desire of our hearts – last Friday’s PET scan shows that my second tumor that was removed last November…did not metastasize! Given the aggressive nature of that reoccurring cancer, this news is quite miraculous,” she wrote at the time.
Now, she uses her experience to encourage others who might be facing a similar battle.
“So, take heart. The Lord of the universe is with you in every health challenge you face,” she continued. “It’s always where you see Jesus, your ‘Man of Sorrows,’ up close and personal and very very tender. His love is powerful enough to pull you through. You can, in cancer, be more than a conqueror. For as Romans 8: 38-39 says, ‘For I’m convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels or demons, neither the present or the future, nor anything else in all creation (including cancer) will be able to separate us in the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.’”
READ MORE: HOW GOD TURNED JONI EARECKSON TADA’S SETBACK INTO LIFE’S GREATEST GIFT
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