Acceptance
I was forced to realize that many, many people face problems just like mine—or worse. It’s a kind of scale…Every person alive fits somewhere onto a scale of suffering that ranges from little to much. The problem is we usually like to compare ourselves only with those who suffer less…when we face reality and stand beside those who suffer more, our purple-heart medals don’t shine so brightly.
Joni Eareckson Tada
Though east and west seem farthest removed on a map, they eventually meet on a globe. What therefore appears as opposites—east and west—in time come together, if we follow one of the other long enough and far enough. My sister Diane told me that the quickest way for anyone to reach the sun and the light of day is not to run west, chasing after the setting sun, but to head east, plunging into the darkness until one comes to sunrise.
Jerry Sittser
I decided the awkwardness of feeding myself outweighed the fleeting satisfaction of self-pity. It pushed me to pray, Oh, God, help me with this spoon! My secret was learning to lean on the Lord for help. Today I manage a spoon with my arm splint quite well. I didn’t get back use of my arms or hands. But I did learn to be content.
Joni Eareckson Tada
If we never had to weep, we would never know what it was like to have a friend wipe tears from our eyes.
Joni Eareckson Tada
[Upon learning of an unfaithful husband] I felt like a shotgun had blasted me in the stomach, or like a fullback had knocked the wind out of me. The shock was seismic—it took my breath away. I felt flattened. Completely leveled. Then somehow I managed to recoup.
Ruth Graham
Finally, we reach the point where we begin to search for a new life, one that depends less on circumstances and more on the depth of our souls. That, in turn, opens us to new ideas and perspectives, including spiritual ones. We feel the need for something beyond ourselves, and it begins to dawn on us that reality may be more than we once thought it to be.
Jerry Sittser
The hurting and hammering process won’t end until we become completely holy (and there’s no chance of that happening this side of eternity). This is why I accept my paralysis as a chronic condition.
Joni Eareckson Tada
If you have tried everything to be healed but nothing has changed, then has it ever really hit you that the reason you are in your present condition is that God, in his wisdom, wills it to be so?
Joni Eareckson Tada
Why me? I have asked that question often, as many people do after suffering loss. I once heard someone ask the opposite question, “Why not me?” It was not a fatalistic question because he is not a fatalistic person. He could no more explain why his life had turned bad than he could explain why his life had been so good up to that point. He concluded that much of life seems just to happen; it is beyond our control. “Why not me?” is as good a question to ask as any.
Jerry Sittser
I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. I can do everything through him who gives me strength.
Philippians 4:12–13