Afterword: Joni—25th Anniversary Edition

“Even one person would make the wheelchair worth all that the past eight years have cost.” I just read that closing line on the opposite page. But when I glossed over the word “eight,” my heart skipped a beat. How about thirty-five years?

Thirty-five years later and almost 3 million copies circulated in the United States, I am happy and humbled that not only one person, but many thousands have been drawn to Christ. Not only in the States, but abroad.

I am thinking of Dr. Zhang Xu, an orthopedic surgeon who lives in Anshan, northeast of Beijing, China. Dr. Zhang was working in the Middle East and, on a weekend respite near a lake, he dove into shallow water and broke his neck. He suffered many complications, and by the time he was sent home to China he was near death.

A Japanese therapist who was helping Xu gave him a tattered copy of the Joni book in English. Dr. Zhang Xu slowly read the account of another person who, like him, once dove into water only to rise and face a life of shattered dreams. He was deeply encouraged to know that he was not alone in his heartbreaking journey. Someone else understood. More important, God understood.

Immediately Dr. Zhang embarked on translating the Joni book into simplified Chinese text. Late into the night, with the book propped on a stand, Xu translated each word to his mother who, by the glow of a desk lamp, wrote down every word in pencil. Xu and his mother wanted very much to share the story of Joni with thousands of other disabled people in their vast nation. After many months, Zhang Xu had a manuscript that was a foot-and-a-half high!

To make a long story short, two years later my husband, Ken, and I had the joy of attending a press conference at the China Rehabilitation Research Center in Beijing, where Dr. Zhang and I were guests of honor. The Joni book had been published by a secular publishing company and we were there to happily preside over the distribution of hundreds of hot-off-the-press copies to disabled people and their families at the center. And that’s just the beginning. The Joni book has helped open doors so that we can distribute wheelchairs in China and work with churches to reach out to more people with disabilities.

It’s happening not only in China, but all over the world.

And it’s happening here at home. My heart was warmed when I received this note: “My mother bought me your first book in 1983 after I broke my neck in an auto accident. My husband, Larry, would lie on the floor under my Stryker frame and hold the book up so I could read it. You are such a motivation to people like me with disabilities. Keep it up! Love, Lenda.”

I looked up from Lenda’s note and recalled what it felt like, nearly three and a half decades ago, to lie facedown on a Stryker frame. The restraining straps…the stiffness in my neck…staring at the floor tiles and fighting off claustrophobia. I recall how my father fashioned a little stool just high enough to fit underneath my Stryker frame. He would place a book on it so I could reach the pages with my mouth stick. One of the first books I asked for was the Bible (I tried very hard not to drool on it!). Why the Bible? I had a zillion questions and I was desperate for answers.

And you know the rest of the story. Yes, I found some helpful answers, but more important, I found the One who holds all the answers in His hand. His answer from the cross was and is enough for me—He did all His explaining there on Calvary. He carried His cross so that we might have strength to carry ours.

This is why I wrote the book Joni. I knew there would be thousands of people, like me, who would follow in my “wheelchair tracks.” They too would have heart-wrenching questions. They also would lie in hospital beds and wonder about the future. I also knew there would be thousands more who would not experience a broken neck, but a broken heart or broken home. When I wrote Joni in 1976, I believed the book would have universal appeal. And in the new millennium, it continues to speak volumes to those who hurt.

I’m in my fifties now and, with it, I am facing a whole new set of aches and pains, limitations and challenges. But rather than worry about the future, I’ll remember Lenda’s words. “Keep it up!” I’ll keep holding onto God’s grace one day at a time. I will say “yes” to the offer of His strength and power and “no” to grumbling, no matter if I face a four-week stint in bed with pressure sores, or a flat tire on my wheelchair when I’m cruising the Thousand Oaks mall.

I will keep being a supportive wife to my husband of nearly twenty years, Ken Tada. I will continue to shine the light of Christ and shake the salt of God’s good news through Joni and Friends (JAF), our international outreach to people with disabilities and their families. I will keep traveling to our JAF Family Retreats with Ken, connecting with scores of moms and dads and disabled children. I will keep ministering through Wheels for the World, our program through which we take refurbished wheelchairs to needy disabled people overseas, as well as Bibles and disability ministry training materials for churches. I will keep advocating for families affected by disability to improve the quality of life and care, whether here in the U.S. or around the world. I will keep on keeping on, by the grace of God.

As long as I can sit up in this chair and as long as my lungs hold out, I will echo Isaiah 12:5 and “sing to the Lord, for he has done glorious things; let this be known to all the world.” Come to think of it, even if I can’t sit up in my chair, I’ll avail myself of His grace. I know plenty of bedridden believers whose lives have a powerful and poignant influence far beyond the four walls of their rooms.

If that’s what’s in store, the woman whose wheelchair for the last thirty-five years has been on high speed will be flat on her back. But my bed won’t be the place of affliction you read about in Joni. It will be—as it has been for a long time—an altar of praise. Lying on my back, I’ll be forced to look up. Always and always onward and upward into the heart of heaven. Looking up into the face of my Lord Jesus.

And by the grace of God…I’ll keep smiling.

Joni Eareckson Tada, 2001

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