Joni & Ken by Ken Joni Eareckson Tada & Larry Libby

Author:Ken, Joni Eareckson Tada & Larry Libby [Ken; Tada, Joni Eareckson; Libby, Larry]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Zondervan
Published: 2013-03-18T04:00:00+00:00

APRIL 10, 1999

As Joni suspected, Ken wasn’t getting nearly enough sleep. It wasn’t easy to be awakened out of a deep slumber in the wee hours of the morning, to turn Joni to a new position, and then to get back to sleep again, only to have it happen again and again. Sometimes sitting at his desk at school, he would find himself nodding off.

He did feel sorrow for her pain. They’d already been through so much together. He hated with all his heart to see her suffer, and he knew it was every bit as awful as she described it. But if a series of elite medical specialists couldn’t find anything wrong, any source for the pain, what could he do? If God Himself had allowed this thing to go on and on, how could he help? Where could he put his oar in the water? Most men were wired to be problem solvers; if something needed fixing, they’d find a way to fix it, to take care of it. But this was something he couldn’t fix, couldn’t repair, couldn’t stop, couldn’t figure out. He was sympathetic, yes. And God knew how much he cared. But how much mental and emotional energy could a person pour into an insoluble problem? After a while, you just tried to live with it. It became part of life’s landscape, like living in Siberia and stepping out the door every morning to feel the savage cold. Sooner or later your mind stopped saying, “Good grief, it’s really cold!” You just pulled your hat down over your ears, wrapped your scarf tightly, and lived with it.

He had known from day one, back when they were fresh-faced kids in their thirties, that living with Joni’s quadriplegia would be difficult. But not this difficult. It had, frankly, pushed him right to the edge. But how could he complain? What was his inconvenience compared to what Joni suffered?

The practical effect was that Ken and Joni began to find themselves on parallel tracks rather than traveling side by side on the same road. Joni realized one of the best treatments for pain was a good distraction, so she kept busy with ministry duties, writing books, and doing radio. Ken oriented himself more and more toward those areas of life where he had complete control: class preparation, grading papers, giving tests, and all that went with teaching. And after all, Joni had Judy. She had always had Judy. It made sense, didn’t it? Judy had been with Joni for decades, having answered God’s call on her life to help with the ministry. And Judy had a nursing background and was so much better at handling those particularly difficult challenges of Joni’s paralysis. Ken wasn’t even as “hands-on” as he had been in the earlier years of their marriage. It was just easier to leave it to Judy. Or Francie, Patti, or Carolyn — or whoever.

They could still move in and out of each other’s worlds, but it wasn’t happening as often, or as joyfully, as it used to.

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