Outsource: A Hospital Lesson from Joni

“I will be with him in trouble.”

Psalm 91:15b

Perhaps a better title for today’s Reload should be: “ANOTHER Lesson from Joni.” For as long as I’ve been alive she has been cheerfully using her pain to glorify God. She sees life through more spiritual eyes than I ever will. Every Scripture, hymn, and prayer is invigorated by her devotion to Christ through suffering. This lesson came to me via an email subscription some years ago, and to the best of my knowledge it from the forward to a book by John Piper entitled Lessons from a Hospital Bed.

My Hospital Lesson

“Hi, I’m Joni Eareckson Tada and I know hospitals.

                I wish I didn’t, but over the years I’ve become all too acquainted with their stale corridors and ice-cold operating rooms. It started back in 1967 when a reckless dive into shallow water snapped my neck, leaving me a quadriplegic. When they rushed me to the hospital on that hot, July afternoon, I had no idea I wouldn’t be discharged until April 1969. One morning I was lying on a gurney in the hallway outside of the urology clinic. After two hours of waiting, lying there counting ceiling tiles, a lab worker finally came out to announce that I would be “first after lunch break.” As the urology staff headed to the cafeteria, I just watched them go down the hallway and my heart sank.

                I did not dare cry because there was no one around to wipe my tears. So I decided to comfort my soul with a hymn. In no more than a whisper, I sang a favorite from church choir:

"Be still my soul, the Lord on thy side;
Bear patiently the cross of grief or pain.
Leave to thy God to order and provide;
In every change He faithful will remain!
Be still my soul, thy best thy heavenly Friend
Through thorny ways leads to a joyful end!"

I was only 17 years old, but that moment defined how I would engage life in a hospital. My stay, I determined, would not be a jail sentence. I purposed that that hospital would be, well, a gymnasium for my soul, a proving ground for my faith, and a mission field for God.

Sound improbable for a teenager? It is.

And looking back, it was. Yet I was enough of a Christ follower to know I had to hold onto biblical hope, or else I would go crazy.”

Lesson Quiz

• What challenges are you facing in your life right now?
• Where do you turn for help when the circumstances won’t change?
• Are you enough of a follower of Christ to trust Him through your trials?

I encourage you to visit joniandfriends.org/jonis-corner/ for more info on this courageous lady, and her joyful testimony.

“Be still, and know that I am God: I will be exalted amonth the heathen, I will be exalted in the earth.”

Psalm 46:10

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Disclaimer: Recommending this article does not imply an agreement with all the doctrine, information, or advice on “joniandfriends.org”

Please, “chew the meat and spit out the bones.”