Joni Eareckson Tada

“There is nothing that moves a loving father's soul quite like his child's cry.”

“Perspective is everything when you are experiencing the challenges of life.”

“My weakness, that is, my quadriplegia, is my greatest asset because it forces me into the arms of Christ every single morning when I get up.”

“Oh, my goodness, when you're a mother and you just give birth to a child with spina bifida and - or Down's Syndrome or cerebral palsy, there's a bit of a shock you're going to have to go through, a bit of an adjustment curve.”

“Every time we go to sleep, it's a rehearsal of the day when our eyes will ultimately close and we wake up on the side of eternity.”

“Suffering provides the gym equipment on which my faith can be exercised.”

“Sometimes God allows what he hates to accomplish what he loves.”

“You better be very convinced, very sure, before you pull your plug or someone else's plug, that you know what's on the other side of the gravestone.”

“Americans are nervous; Americans are restless; and what troubles me the most is that Americans are uncharacteristically pessimistic.”

“Cancer is such a wake-up call to remind us how high the cosmic stakes really are and how short and brief and frail life really is.”

“The hallmark of a healthy society has always been measured by how it cares for the disadvantaged.”

“Anyone who takes the Bible seriously agrees that God hates suffering. Jesus spent most of his time relieving it. But when being healed becomes the only goal - 'I'm not letting go until I get what I want' - it's a problem.”

“One problem I have with faith-healing is that it tends to be focused only on the physical aspect of healing. But Jesus always backed away when people came to him only to get their physical needs met. My goodness, he was ready to have you lop off your hand! His real interest was in healing the soul.”

“He has chosen not to heal me, but to hold me. The more intense the pain, the closer His embrace.”

“I was in every club and extra-curricular activity at high school, and I was in the National Honor Society.”

“The Psalms wrap nouns and verbs around our pain better than any other book.”