A Place Of Healing By Joni Eareckson-Tada
My friend Chelsey Lawrence put a link for a free Kindle edition of “A Place Of Healing” in the Vasculitis support group that I belong to. I downloaded Joni’s book while it was free. I enjoyed reading it and I have enjoyed reading another one of Joni’s books called Joni. I read Joni as a teenager before I knew what having a disability was on a personal level. My foster mother suffered from blindness and so does my sister Joy, but I never truly suffered from such a thing. The reason I enjoyed reading “A Place Of Healing is because it described her faith, endurance, strength, support system, and how she felt in her book and she seemed to have reached a place of peace with her new condition, chronic pain. Despite being somewhat healthy her quiet strength and endurance spoke to me then and it still does.
In this new book, she is writing about healing while suffering from chronic pain. There are a few passages in her book that I found particularly helpful. “Don’t allow the enemy of your soul to convince you that your tasks today are ho-hum and ordinary, nothing special, and nothing extraordinary. Keep your batteries charged and you can’t help but have a powerful influence on others” Joni Eareckson-Tada. The reason these words of hers brought some encouragement to my soul is that often times I have felt like I do not lead an exciting life. I am not married with a brood of children to take care. I don’t travel around seeing exotic places and doing extraordinary things. I don’t influence others. Let’s just say that I have a lot of I don’t’s in my vocabulary at this juncture in my life. Half of the time I think I am doing well just getting up and getting a few chores done with Myron my care provider or driving up to the University Of Washington in Seattle to see my doctor. But if I take Joni’s insight to my heart, keep myself charged, look at my life and the things I do in a new light. Appreciate that I am able to do what I can and if I don’t like it change it. I am growth oriented. I struggle with being that way with the many obstacles I am having, such as breathing, money, and figuring out how to stop being a vegetable that sits at home and does nothing. I am still working on those details and many others. I know that I will get to a better frame of mind as I walk on down this path.
Here is another one: “I may not be able to do a lot of things when I am suffering intense pain, but I can still breathe in God’s Presents and exhale my thanks. I can still breathe in God’s grace and forgiveness and exhale my gratitude and love.” Joni Eareckson-Tada
If you have been reading my blog long you know that I have a Subglottic Stenosis which inhibits my ability to breathe affectively. In fact, August 1st I will be going in for another surgery to have a T-stent put in so that I can keep my airway open. I love her way of appreciating every breathe, despite being in pain, reminds me of a song that my sister Carri introduced me to a few years ago called Alive Again by Matt Maher.
I greatly appreciated Eareckson-Tada’s thoughts, words of wisdom, scripture references, and how she has grown since her accident 40 years ago that caused her to become a quad. Even though we suffer with different disabilities I have issues with breathing and a disease that attacks my body in different placed and she cannot use her body and suffers great pain we both can see and use our gifts of pain, suffering, and stenosis to greatly show the grace of God in our lives and how he is there. God may not stop us from being hurt, but He can use the experiences to enrich our lives and those around us.
I know that the last three years I have grown in many ways and I do know that I need to grow in many other ways in order for me to become even better than I am now.
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