One of the keys to Joni’s suffering is singing. As she suffers the effects of her paralysis, as she endures chronic pain, as she persists through illness, she sings. And it’s out of her singing-through-suffering that she brings a new book titled Songs of Suffering. This book is a series of devotionals based upon 25 hymns that have proven especially precious to her.

Few people have a sweeter and kinder spirit than Joni Eareckson Tada. Few people have suffered longer and more consistently than Joni Eareckson Tada. These two things—sweetness and suffering—do not necessarily go together, but by God’s grace they can and often do. They most certainly do in Joni’s life which is one of the reasons so many of us admire and honor her.

One of the keys to Joni’s suffering is singing. As she suffers the effects of her paralysis, as she endures chronic pain, as she persists through illness, she sings. And it’s out of her singing-through-suffering that she brings a new book titled Songs of Suffering. This book is a series of devotionals based upon 25 hymns that have proven especially precious to her.

“I have lived with quadriplegia for more than half a century,” she explains, “and have wrestled with chronic pain for much of that time. I struggle with breathing problems and am in an ongoing battle against cancer. All this makes for a perfect storm for discouragement.”

Yet when my hip and back are frozen in pain, or it’s simply another weary day of plain paralysis, I strengthen myself with Jesus’s example in the upper room.

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