JONI EARECKSON TADA

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

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

In the Christian faith, God really puts suffering front and center. He doesn't get squeamish about it.

If churches around the world would grasp the revolutionary truth that Christ's transforming power always comes through sacrifice and weakness, it would dramatically alter the landscape of the global church.

My life goal is to see the world's one billion people with disabilities embraced and encouraged by the church.

The Bible is replete with commands to persevere, especially in the face of injustice.

Like all good citizens, the elderly and people with disabilities want to eradicate waste and fraud from government, but helping people with special needs meet their basic needs doesn't fit this description.

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.

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.

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.

Well, painting is the one thing I do, that is just me. It's me and easels, and the pencils. And as long as I don't drool too much over the canvas, the colors come out pretty good. And it's a chance to express all that I've got inside, that I sometimes keep hidden. And I think that's why I paint big broad, wide open landscapes.

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.

None of us, in our culture of comfort, know how to prepare ourselves for dying, but that's what we should do every day. Every single day, we die a thousand deaths.

When we say yes to the grace of God, we are learning how to die.

Alzheimer's disease is never an 'accident' in a marriage. It falls under the purview of God's sovereignty. In the case of someone with Alzheimer's, this means God's unconditional and sacrificial love has an opportunity to be even more gloriously displayed in a life together.

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

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.

If you truly believe in the value of life, you care about all of the weakest and most vulnerable members of society.

God is truly on the side of those who work for social justice, especially when we accompany that work with the giving of the Gospel!

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

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.

Some people tend to believe that I'm a strong believer, a strong Christian, but that's not true. I'm not a strong believer. I'm very weak.

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.

I have an interesting perspective on depending on others. I think it gives people a chance to serve. And I'm not so much big on independence, as I am on interdependence. I'm not talking about co-dependency, I'm talking about giving people the opportunity to practicing love with its sleeves rolled up.

Life becomes inspiring, not in spite of the problems and the hard hits, but because of them.