The God I Love: A Lifetime of Walking with Jesus [Paperback]

Joni Eareckson Tada (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 12, 2003

A little girl on a big horse, cantering across a spring-green pasture...wide-eyed children gathered 'round a beach fire, listening to a father's stories of the high seas... an expansive, you-can-see-forever view from the top of Pike's Peak... Another view from a Stryker frame, where an active young woman learns she will never walk again... Heading down a church aisle to marry the man she loves...looking into the eyes of a child in a wheelchair, and seeing the family God has prepared for a loving heart...sitting by the pool of Bethesda, reflecting on the miracle of healing God has performed in her heart... The God I Love brings to life these and many other moments. It offers an eternal perspective from a woman in a wheelchair who affirms that the God she knows and loves is the center, the peacemaker, the passport to adventure, the joy ride, and the answer to her deepest longings. Raised in an active, adventurous family, Joni Eareckson Tada worked hard and played hard to keep up with her older sisters and athletic father---until one day a diving accident left her a quadriplegic. But the tragedy that could have ended her life was in reality the beginning of an amazing, constantly unfolding story of grace that has touched the lives of millions worldwide and brought Joni unexpected joy and fulfillment. In this book, Joni unveils the God whom she has found to be faithful through over thirty years as a paralytic. This is not the story of a woman who has all the answers or who is very different from you. Joni struggles with the same fears, questions, and heartaches we all have in common. But as the weeks and months turn into years, and the years into decades, she meets her Savior at every turn. In this book, you'll discover that he is there for you as well, no matter what your circumstance or situation may be. Written with beauty, feeling, and amazing honesty, The God I Love captures the heart and soul of one woman's powerful, deeply personal journey of hope. It is a sojourn from a naive child's belief to a tempered faith that transforms and transcends personal tragedy, bringing light to the darkest places and good out of the most difficult situations, and offering glimpses of the glory that awaits God's children.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

"Memory means everything to me," writes Tada. In this tender, beautifully written memoir, she reflects with vivid detail on the idyllic Maryland childhood that shaped her Christian faith and the 1967 diving accident that left her a quadriplegic but showed her that "there are more important things in life than walking." As the youngest of four girls, Tada idolized her father and namesake, Johnny, who instilled in her a daredevil sense of adventure and shaped her view of God. When as a teenager she drifted from faith, she prayed that God would turn her around. Tada believes the accident she had at age 17 was God's response: "It wasn't some flip-of-the-coin in the cosmos, some turn in the universe's roulette wheel. It was part of God's plan-for me." She shares how her experiences with suffering have given her a platform to encourage others with disabilities through her speaking, writing, artwork and the organization she founded to aid the disabled, "Joni and Friends." Intermixed with humorous stories about her friends, marriage and professional triumphs are vulnerable glimpses of her dips into depression, anger and frustration over infertility. But, almost 36 years after "the dive," Tada has learned that "true wisdom is found in trusting God when you can't figure things out." Christian readers should appreciate this mature, absorbing reminiscence of a remarkable life.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

Tada has had a blessed life. From an idyllic childhood, during which a larger-than-life father beguiled her with tales true and tall, to an adult life as actress, author, and motivational speaker, attended by a devoted husband and friends, hers is a remarkable story of grace, good luck, and God's love. Not everyone might wish to trade places with her, however, because being quadriplegic would not be their idea of good luck. Nor, for some time after a swimming accident at age 17 paralyzed her, was it Tada's idea of God's love. The accomplished horsewoman and swimmer was sidetracked by an act of a God she thought she knew. And indeed, through prayer she discerned God more clearly and emerged from personal anguish. A moving, well-told memoir of both the desperate and the hopeful hours that led Tada to realize her mission in life as a minister to disabled persons the world over. Donna Chavez
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 18 and up
  
• Paperback: 368 pages
• Publisher: Zondervan; 1 edition (July 12, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0310240085
• ISBN-13: 978-0310240082
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #526,811 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Joni Eareckson Tada is the founder of Joni and Friends, an organization accelerating Christian outreach in the disability community that numbers 610 million people worldwide. This organization operates out of the new Joni and Friends International Disability Center located in Agoura Hills, California. Joni is not only an international disability advocate but an artist and the author of numerous bestselling books, including Pearls of Great Price, Diamonds in the Dust, More Precious Than Silver, the Platinum award-winning Joni, Heaven: Your Real Home, When God Weeps, and The God I Love.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

26 of 27 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Irresistible, October 31, 2003

By 

V. L. Wilson "V. L. Wilson" (Millville, New Jersey United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The God I Love: A Lifetime of Walking with Jesus (Paperback)

When Joni Eareckson Tada completes a book, I buy it immediately.
Since her first book detailing her accident, I have purchased every one since and given many as gifts. I love them all but this one is the most revealing.

The God I Love, is wonderful. I relate to Joni and her horse accomplishments and her life before the accident. She is an incredible writer. Now in this book, she fills us in on her entire life up to the present.There are several surprises. Her family, her friends, her travels thruout the world, how she deals with her physical condition, and what makes her joyful, are all here, written so beautifully and so sincerely.

I recommend this book to everyone - young and old - no matter what your religious affiliation - this book is about a life well lived despite being confined to a wheelchair because this talented intelligent woman reached out to God.

21 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars This autobiography may be Tada's best work to date, June 27, 2004

By 

FaithfulReader.com (New York, New York) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The God I Love: A Lifetime of Walking with Jesus (Paperback)

For Joni Eareckson Tada's memoir to turn out to be anything less than stellar would be difficult to imagine. A long-time bestselling author with an amazing story and a highly successful ministry, Tada outdoes her remarkable record with an autobiography that may be her best book so far.

The basics of Tada's life are well-known in Christian circles. Reared in a Christian home, Joni Eareckson was planning to enter Western Maryland College in the fall of 1967. But a trip to a Chesapeake Bay beach in July of that year permanently changed her life. A "simple" dive went wrong, and Joni ended up paralyzed from the neck down, confined to a wheelchair for life. In the following decade, Christians in America would become familiar with the once-unknown young woman who had learned to draw and paint with her mouth and was steadily producing a successful line of artwork sold in Christian stores. Her story was told in print and on film, and her voice later became a mainstay on Christian radio. In the intervening years, she has become an advocate for the disabled, not only in the United States but also around the world.

In no previous book has Joni Eareckson --- now married to Ken Tada --- been quite so transparent and open about the highs and lows of her relationship with God, particularly in the years immediately following the accident but also amid the day-to-day frustrations that come with being dependent upon others for the basic necessities of life. Through it all --- through the extraordinary accomplishments of someone who at one time had every reason to give up on life --- you get the sense that many of Tada's inner struggles are very ordinary, very human, and therefore very easy for others to relate to.

Tada writes about social issues, such as her firsthand experience with oppression in former communist countries, with as much sensitivity as she writes about highly personal issues, like her disappointment and sorrow after learning that she was infertile. She seamlessly intersperses detailed accounts of her many international trips with loving stories about her close-knit family, her circle of friends, and her marriage to Ken. Especially poignant are passages relating to the deaths of her mother and father.

Throughout, of course, the focus always returns to Tada's relationship with God and the subtle irony inherent in the subtitle, "A Lifetime of Walking with Jesus." Even from her wheelchair, Tada "walks" with God. She writes, "Ah, this is the God I love. The Center, the Peacemaker, the Passport to adventure, the Joyride, and the Answer to all our deepest longings. The answer to all our fears, Man of Sorrows and Lord of Joy, always permitting what he hates, to accomplish something he loves...There are more important things in life than walking."

Fans of Joni Eareckson Tada's previous books will not be disappointed with this one. It's a beautifully written tribute to the love of God as seen through the life of one woman who found freedom and joy in Christ in the midst of what another might consider a cruel confinement.

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Christian heroine, June 11, 2005

By 

M. CUNNINGHAM "Valerie" (Columbia, MD) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

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This review is from: The God I Love: A Lifetime of Walking with Jesus (Paperback)

Joni Eareckson Tada is the author of several books, but this is the most revealing look at her life ever. She spends several chapters talking about her childhood and her early teen years before her paralyzing accident. Joni talks about the suicidal thoughts she had after she became paralyzed. "The God I love" tells very sad stories, humorous incidents, poignant recollections, and the romantic story of how Joni and Ken Tada fell in love. Through it all, Joni's devout Christian faith has always been growing.1
Today, besides being an author, artist, and advocate for the disabled, Joni Eareckson Tada is an outspoken opponent of embryonic stem cell research. It's too bad the general public has not heard as much from her as they did from the late Christopher Reeve (as much as I respected his and his wife's courage.)
Joni Eareckson Tada is a modern Christian heroine.