An Untold Love Story (Part 1) - Ken and Joni Tada

An Untold Love Story (Part 1) - Ken and Joni Tada
An Untold Love Story (Part 2) - Ken and Joni Tada

FamilyLife Today® Radio Transcript  

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Following God Together

 

Guests:                      Ken and Joni Tada              

From the series:       An Untold Love Story (Day 1 of 2)

 

 

Bob:  The quality of your marriage is affected by your priorities. Here’s Joni Eareckson Tada.

 

Joni:  Sit down, one time, with your spouse and just talk about—sketch it out—“What is the big picture?” Then, commit to make that your goal. For Ken and me—I trust for most Christian couples—it is heaven. It is the finish line. It is the end of the good fight. It is hearing those wonderful words, “Well done, good and faithful servant.” That’s what we want to hear! That’s what we’re living for.

 

Bob:  This is FamilyLife Today for Thursday, May 2nd. Our host is the President of FamilyLife®, Dennis Rainey, and I'm Bob Lepine. We’ll hear from Joni and Ken Tada today about how living with heaven in mind—the finish line in mind—can have an impact on your marriage today. Stay tuned.  

 

And welcome to FamilyLife Today. Thanks for joining us. One of my favorite passages of Scripture is in Second Corinthians, Chapter 5. It talks about how Christians are new creatures in Christ; and then, goes on to say that we’re ambassadors. We live as citizens in one kingdom—

 

Dennis:  That’s right.

 

Bob: —but we’re living in a different kingdom, representing the homeland—representing our King. I was thinking about that today because I was thinking we’re all ambassadors; but sometimes, when some ambassadors get up to speak, I cringe a little bit at how that ambassador is going to represent the kingdom. I’ve never had that cringe happen when I hear our guests get up to speak and represent the Kingdom.

 

Dennis:  No, there’s something that resonates within the spirit that they should take the stage, and the podium, and the pulpit, and tell it like it is because they have lived in the presence of Jesus Christ in ways that we’re going to talk about today. We’re going to talk about a great love story. Ken and Joni Eareckson Tada join us on FamilyLife Today again. Welcome back, you guys. It’s good to have you. 

 

Ken:  Thank you, Dennis; and thank you, Bob.

 

Joni:  Well, what an introduction, Bob. My goodness! How, I want to be a good ambassador for Jesus.

 

Bob:  Wow.

 

Dennis: You always have been! You always have been.

 

Joni:  Oh, let me never just defame the good name of Jesus.

 

Dennis:  Well, Joni, you’ve written over 50 books. Ken, you are a world-class fly fisherman. You told me that yourself. [Laughter]

 

Joni:  Yes, he is. He really is! [Laughter]

 

Ken:  I am not a world-class fly fisherman.

 

Bob:  But here, I’m just juxtaposing. You’ve written 50 books—you can catch fish. Way to go—a great team. [Laughter]

 

Ken:  Yes, I guess there is some connection right there.

 

Dennis:  It’s a great team. Ken leads these outfitter adventures. In fact, it’s called “The Wild Adventure” in Montana.

 

Ken:  Yes.

 

Dennis:  I’m going to get on one of those one of these days because I can wet a fly, too.

 

Ken:  That’s a lead-in to that book because this book is for men—the book that we just wrote.

 

Dennis:  This really is a book; and Joni, you said it earlier. In fact, why don’t you comment on this book? It’s called Joni and Ken: An Untold Love Story. 

 

Joni:  That’s right.

 

Dennis:  Say what you told me, just before we came on the air.

 

Joni:  Well, I think the subtitle, An Untold Love Story—it is really Ken’s story. It’s an untold story about him. We have never peeled back the layers of our marriage quite like we have in this most-recent book; but after we crested 30 years of marriage, we looked at one another and thought: “You know—we’re not experts. We’ve never been to seminary. We’re not family counselors. But after three decades of quadriplegia—then, chronic pain and quadriplegia—then, breast cancer, and chronic pain, and quadriplegia—in some ways, that’s given us—I don’t know—some new fresh platform—a kind of an authority to speak to other couples about what commitment really is.” But it’s Ken’s commitment that comes shining through the pages of this book.

 

Dennis:  I really want to disagree with you about the seminary thing. 

 

Joni:  Oh, come on.

 

Dennis:  I think you have both been to the ultimate seminary—

 

Bob:  Yes.

 

Dennis:  —every day, experiencing God and seeing Him at work in your lives, your marriage, and sharing that together. I have to say, as I told you earlier, your book really is quite a love story. It’s a paradox. It’s not at all the warm fuzzy that Hollywood would tell.

 

Joni:  No. When Ken and I married—well, I should say before we married, we had lots of friends—not all of them believers, not all of them followers of Jesus—who suggested, that since I was a quadriplegic, that Ken and I should go away—try it out for a weekend; see if this was going to work—“Ken, can you handle it?” But Ken and I just decided we weren’t going to do that. We weren’t going to violate our convictions. So, we went into this marriage, saying: “I do, for better or for worse, in sickness and in health,” really not knowing how challenging those 24/7, non-stop, daily, dreary routines of my disability could be. 

 

We call those years in our marriage the tired middle years. The first ten years—fifteen years—of our marriage were extremely difficult.

 

Ken:  It made for an interesting honeymoon [chuckle] you know, and—

 

Dennis:  And you really spell that out in the book, but I want to take you back to where you start the book. You begin with this romantic date—that you’re on—where you declare to Ken that cancer had been a gift. I want you to tell that story.