On Wheelchairs in Heaven

Joni Eareckson Tada on the place of suffering:

Folks will notice that various articles here of late deal with suffering, hardship and death. There would be good reasons for this. I and my friends are getting old. One of them just passed away yesterday. In a few days the second anniversary of my wife’s passing will take place. We all suffer, and we all will die.

Of course such pieces will not appeal to everyone. Some will think it is all too morose or gloomy or negative or ‘yucky’. At least two groups especially will not show much interest in these kinds of articles. Most young people would not take much notice of these things. It all seems like a million miles away from them and where they are at.

Another group would be those believers who think that we should only think happy thoughts, and never acknowledge anything ‘negative’ in life. They say we must only think positively, and never engage in ‘negative confession’ and the like.

But both groups really need to get real here. In this life, suffering, hardship, disease and death are realities that we ALL will face. No one will escape these things. But the good news is, God can and does use all this for the greater good, and for his glory. He is sovereign, even over our suffering.

Some years ago John Piper and Justin Taylor edited the book Suffering and the Sovereignty of God (Crossway, 2006). It contains 11 articles penned by 8 different authors. One of the chapters, Hope…the Best of Things, was written by Joni Eareckson Tada.

Many of you know her as the exemplary Christian woman who has such an amazing testimony of God’s grace in the midst of great suffering. When she was 17 a diving accident resulted in her becoming a quadriplegic. So for the past 58 years she has spent her life confined to a wheelchair.

Her brief chapter contains so much wonderful truth and so many inspiring remarks. Let me quote from some of it. Midway through the piece she discusses her own disability and offers these spiritual realities:

Do you know who the truly handicapped people are? They are the ones — and many of them are Christians — who hear the alarm clock go off at 7:30 in the morning, throw back the covers, jump out of bed, take a quick shower, choke down breakfast, and zoom out the front door. They do all this on automatic pilot without stopping once to acknowledge their Creator, their great God who gives them life and strength each day. Christian, if you live that way, do you know that James 4:6 says God opposes you? “God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble.”

 

And who are the humble? They are people who are humiliated by their weaknesses. Catheterized people whose leg bags spring leaks on somebody else’s brand-new carpet. Immobilized people who must be fed, cleansed, dressed, and taken care of like infants. Once-active people crippled by chronic aches and pains. God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble, so then submit yourselves to God. Resist the devil, who loves nothing more than to discourage you and corrode your joy. Resist him and he will flee you. Draw near to God in your affliction, and he will draw near to you (James 4:6-8). Take up your cross daily and follow the Lord Jesus (Luke 9:23).

 

I must qualify that last statement. Please know that when I take up my cross every day I am not talking about my wheelchair. My wheelchair is not my cross to bear. Neither is your cane or walker your cross. Neither is your dead-end job or your irksome in-laws. Your cross to bear is not your migraine headaches, not your sinus infection, not your stiff joints. That is not your cross to bear. My cross is not my wheelchair; it is my attitude. Your cross is your attitude about your dead-end job and your in-laws. It is your attitude about your aches and pains. Any complaints, any grumblings, any disputings or murmurings, any anxieties, any worries, any resentments or anything that hints of a raging torrent of bitterness — these are the things God calls me to die to daily. For when I do, I not only become like him in his death (that is, taking up my cross and dying to the sin that he died for on his cross), but the power of the resurrection puts to death any doubts, fears, grumblings, and disputings. And I get to become like him in his life. I get to experience the intimate fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, the sweetness and the preciousness of the Savior. I become holy as he is holy. O God, “you will make me full of gladness with your presence” (Acts 2:28).

 

And to be in God’s presence is to be holy. Not to be sinless, but to sin less. To let suffering sandblast you to the core, revealing the stuff of which you are made. And it’s never pretty — the sin we housebreak and domesticate and try to make our own — is it? No. Suffering sandblasts that stuff, leaving us bare and falling head over heels, down for the count and decimated.

 

It is when your soul has been blasted bare, when you feel raw and undone, that you can be better bonded to the Savior. And then you not only meet suffering on God’s terms, but you meet joy on God’s terms…. (pp. 195-197)

Obviously, she greatly looks forward to life in the next world where she will be free of that wheelchair that has imprisoned her for most of her life:

And one day I’m going to leave this wheelchair behind. I cannot wait. I may have suffered with Christ on earth, but one day in heaven I’m going to reign with him. I may have tasted the pains of living on this planet, but one day I’m going to eat from the tree of life in the pleasure of heaven, and it’s all going to happen in the twinkling of an eye. The Lord’s overcoming of this world will be the lifting of the curtain on our five senses, and we shall see him and we shall be like him, and we shall see the whole universe in plain sight. (p. 202)

But one of the best and most amazing quotes comes a few paragraphs later:

I sure hope I can bring this wheelchair to heaven. Now, I know that’s not theologically correct. But I hope to bring it and put it in a little corner of heaven, and then in my new, perfect, glorified body, standing on grateful glorified legs, I’ll stand next to my Savior, holding his nail-pierced hands. I’ll say, “Thank you, Jesus,” and he will know that I mean it, because he knows me. He’ll recognize me from the fellowship we’re now sharing in his sufferings. And I will say, “Jesus, do you see that wheelchair? You were right when you said that in this world we would have trouble, because that thing was a lot of trouble. But the weaker I was in that thing, the harder I leaned on you. And the harder I leaned on you, the stronger I discovered you to be. It never would have happened had you not given me the bruising of the blessing of that wheelchair.”

 

Then the real ticker-tape parade of praise will begin. And all of earth will join in the party.

 

And at that point Christ will open up our eyes to the great fountain of joy in his heart for us beyond all that we ever experienced on earth. And when we’re able to stop laughing and crying, the Lord Jesus really will wipe away our tears. I find it so poignant that finally at the point when I do have the use of my arms to wipe away my own tears, I won’t have to, because God will. (p. 203)

Wow. As I get older, I am having more and more health issues, and more and more aches and pains to deal with. But compared to what Joni has been going through for so long, my issues pale in comparison. And I am sure I gripe and complain and whine about my sufferings far more than she does.

So I have a long way to go when it comes to seeing things as I should. Yes, I can have dozens of biblical passages on suffering whirling around in my head, but letting them grip my heart and soul is another matter. I have so much more to learn and really grasp about what it means to share in the sufferings of Christ.

To be honest, I too often despair of life and wish it was over. But I do not pray that my life will end now. Too many people (and animals) depend on me to think so selfishly. So I pray daily that Christ will return so that all the evil and suffering ends for ALL of us. Until then, I have a job to do here on planet earth.

And God has a job to do with me, to further refine me and make me more in the image of his son. That seems to me to be a very big project indeed. But with his grace, I can hopefully keep growing in Christ as he keeps chipping away at me. And one day I will fully come to see that it has all be worthwhile.

As Joni said elsewhere: “The best we can hope for in this life is a knothole peek at the shining realities ahead. Yet a glimpse is enough. It’s enough to convince our hearts that whatever sufferings and sorrows currently assail us aren’t worthy of comparison to that which waits over the horizon.”

Note: The Piper/Taylor book is still available, but her chapter was later released as a 32-page booklet, Hope…the Best of Things (Crossway, 2008).

[1661 words]