Ankerberg Show

Dr. John Ankerberg: Welcome to the Johnny Ankerberg show Classics Edition. For decades, we've been privileged to host esteemed scholars discussing a wide range of topics from apologetics and science to biblical prophecy and beyond. Join us as we revisit these timeless conversations and make them accessible to you wherever you are.

Dr. John Ankerberg: Today on the Johnny Ankerberg show, how can God help you deal with chronic pain, disability, and illness? For the believer who's an American in Jesus Christ, we've got this wrong. And we think if we do this, then God will do that. Bigger, better, new or more, healthier, prosperous, so forth and so on. When it may be, you're gonna you're gonna struggle. You're gonna suffer.

Guest (Female): I was frightened. I I heard whispers of spinal cord injury, quadriplegia, paralysis, broken neck, and I was terrified.

Dr. John Ankerberg: My guests are Johnny Erickson Tata, the founder of Johnny and Friends, an international ministry for people with disabilities. She has authored over 70 books, is the speaker on the Daily Johnny and Friends Radio Program, and second, Dr. Michael Easley, President Emeritus of Moody Bible Institute. Michael is an author and leading pastor at Fellowship Bible Church in Brentwood, Tennessee. We invite you to join us for this special edition of the Johnny Ankerberg show.

Dr. John Ankerberg: Welcome to our program. We've got a great one for you today. You've heard of our two wonderful guests. We've got Johnny Erickson Tata, we've got Dr. Michael Easley. Folks, we're going to talk about suffering. Johnny, people all around us, folks that are listening right now are suffering. Some in our audience may have an extremely painful cancer. They may have a heart problem. They may have migraine headaches. They may have rheumatoid arthritis.

Dr. John Ankerberg: Some, like you, have either spinal cord damage where they've got paraplegic or they're quadriplegic. Others because of diabetes have even had their hands or feet amputated. Some, like my mom, have Lou Gehrig's or ALS disease and can't walk or talk. Some are suffering from a painful brain tumor or multiple sclerosis. And they're saying something like this.

Dr. John Ankerberg: Johnny, I can't take it anymore. Why does God let me suffer like this? Does God really care about my problems? Why did he allow this to happen? All right. And you said some of these exact same words when your accident took place. And I want you to go back 45 years to 1967, if you would.

Dr. John Ankerberg: And take us back to the time. People want to know the story. What happened? Why have you been confined to that wheelchair? You were a vibrant 17-year-old girl, excellent horseback rider, the whole shooting match. You love the outdoors, and boom, all of a sudden you were faced with the fact you never had the hope of walking again. What happened?

Guest (Female): Well, I am so grateful that you mentioned all those medical conditions at the onset, because people don't have to be in a wheelchair to identify with those questions, the kinds of angst that I went through as a young kid. I was athletic, happy, on my feet, looking forward to college in the fall.

Guest (Female): My sister Kathy, because we were close, suggested that I go to the beach with her that day just for one more sisterly connection before I headed out to college. And I went down to the beach, I went into the water, swam out to this raft that was maybe anchored 20 yards offshore and saw little children jumping, diving off of it, didn't think anything of it.

Guest (Female): Athlete that I was, I didn't even touch bottom, so I really didn't know the depth of the water. Hoisted myself up onto that raft and didn't even take a deep breath but plunged into the water, and immediately my head hit hit something hard, snapping my neck back, crunching my vertebrae, severing my spinal cord.

Guest (Female): I didn't know what had happened at first. All I knew was that I was lying facedown in the water, and my my breath was going fast. I did not realize that but my sister Kathy, she she had her back turned toward me. She she was facing the beach. She was ready to walk up onto the sand. But just at that instant, a crab bit her toe.

Guest (Female): And it so startled her that she whirled around in the water to scream to me, "Johnny, watch out for crabs!" And when she did, now this is really odd. When she did, she saw my peroxidized white blonde hair floating on the surface of the water. It just so happened the night before on a whim, I'd gone to the drugstore and gotten a bottle of Nice 'n Easy midnight summer blonde peroxide to color my hair.

Guest (Female): And we decided later on, she said, "Johnny, I would never have seen you had there not been that shock of white hair against the murky water." Well, I'm still lying face down holding my breath, but this crab had alerted her. She saw my hair. She knew something was wrong. And she kept came swimming for me quickly.

Guest (Female): And just as I started to drown, just as I ingested water, she put her arm under my chest and jerked me up out of the water. That snapped my head back against her chest, but in that instant, I saw my arm slung over her shoulder, dangling. And yet I couldn't feel it. It was like separated. It was like somebody else's arm. This wasn't me. Was it a bad dream?

Guest (Female): And I didn't realize at the time, but I I was experiencing what paralysis really feels like. Well, they put me on this raft, dragged me up onto the beach, called the ambulance, whisked me off to the hospital, ripped off my bathing suit, and in the next instant, I've got crowds of nurses and doctors around me. They're they're shaving my head. They're drilling skulls holes into my skull. They're attaching bolts to my skull. They're putting me on this striker frame, this long flat canvas sandwich to stretch out my neck with weights at the far end of the frame. And I'm thinking, "I just want to go home. I just wanted to go home."

Guest (Female): And I was frightened. I I heard whispers of spinal cord injury, quadriplegia, paralysis, broken neck. I mean, the only thing I knew of a broken neck was when I was a kid and read Black Beauty. And there was some guy who jumped his horse and fell off and and he was the squire's son and he died of a quote broken neck. That's the only thing I knew about it.

Guest (Female): And I was terrified when I heard those words. Because I had a tennis date next Saturday. And I had to get back to the house to get my books together to truck them up to Westminster College and get into my dorm and and put up my pennants and and all of a sudden, life just it just changes. And you don't expect it, and you can't be prepared for it, but it it just changes when you get hit broadside with with suffering.

Guest (Female): I didn't even know what that word meant yet. I was to find out what it would mean, but it was my first it was my first experience that life from now on was going to be very very different.

Dr. John Ankerberg: Along the way in your rehabilitation that went for almost two years, all right? You learned some things. You went through operations, and that led to despair and a real full realization of what you were dealing with. Talk about how you came to know what you were really dealing with.

Guest (Female): Well, some people might look at me and say, "Well, you've got your looks, Johnny." But I I would I would trade blonde hair and Revlon golden bronze lipstick and mascara any day for hands that would work. For the sake of people watching who struggle with facial disfigurements or whatever, there's all kinds of suffering handicaps come at us in all shapes and sizes.

Guest (Female): I didn't even look in a mirror for a good month when I was first injured. I was a healthy 140-pound girl who dropped down to 80 pounds real quick. The medication was turning my teeth black. I had a rash from another reaction to a different medication. I was starting to lose my hair.

Guest (Female): And I remember one time, a girlfriend of mine from high school. She was a hockey player, a burly girl, a rough, muscular girl, and very athletic, and we were good friends. And she came into the hospital and took one look at me and grabbed the guardrail of my hospital bed and then shook her head, "I got to leave."

Guest (Female): And I could hear outside in the hallway, retching and vomiting. And I asked my sister to quick get me a mirror because I had not seen what I looked like. And when I saw what I looked like, I I didn't I didn't recognize me. And my eyes were sunken back into their sockets. I was thin and gaunt, drawn, pale.

Guest (Female): And lying there on that striker frame, it was as though I had turned into some ghoulish figure. I remember it was around I remember it was around my birthday, and somebody had brought into the room, one of those smiley balloons with a big smiley face, and the birthday had passed, and the smiley balloon was still in the corner, but its smile was becoming gnarled and crinkled and ghoulish looking.

Guest (Female): And it was like this big balloon up in the corner looking down on me with this ghoulish crooked smile. And I I just felt like my whole life was in the middle of some nightmare, like some haunted funny house where you turn every corner and see some other image and and you're shocked awake again, and then you think you're ever going to get out of here. And that's that's when I began to sink into depression. I really didn't know what depression was until then.

Guest (Female): Maybe not having a date for Friday night. Maybe twisting my ankle on the basketball court. But now this was real depression. This was emotional numbness. This was sinking down low and deep into a sullen kind of despair that in which I could not even feel. As months went on, I I I even stopped feeling.

Dr. John Ankerberg: You had operations on your hip because the bones were protruding through your skin without anesthesia because you couldn't feel a thing. And tell us why you had to have that operation. You had two of those operations.

Guest (Female): Well, I I lost so much weight that my bones began to protrude through my hips. My love ledges in the front were just poking right through my skin and my tailbone was doing the same. And so I went through a series of operations to chip off, they took a hammer and mallet and chipped off the what are called the iliac crests in the fronts of your hips, and removed my tailbone. And I had to lie face down on a striker frame for two weeks. During which time, adding insult to injury, I I got the Hong Kong flu. And I cannot describe when you're paralyzed and you're strapped to a striker frame, and you already what little bit you can move, you can't move at all because you're on that striker frame strapped, and then you get the flu for two weeks lying face down. It was it was like it was mockery. And and and my girlfriend opened up a Bible and put it face when I was lying face down on the striker frame like that, lying face down on the floor. She put a little Bible on my on a little stool and a pencil in my mouth.

Guest (Female): And I began flipping this way and that, trying to find desperately, finding answers. I kept landing on the Book of Job because I didn't understand it. I was only a high school kid. And this was language far beyond me, but I knew in some strange, instinctive way that this guy, this Job, this he he he he would understand. And I think I was just looking for the Bible to understand me. Just just tell me that I'm not alone, just horribly alone in all of this. And so with that mouth stick, I would often land on Job. I would drool on the Book of Job because I'd be lying face down reading it like that, flipping this way and that with a mouth stick. And I I saw a man who understood despair.

Dr. John Ankerberg: All right. I want you to hold it right there. We're going to take a break because after two years of these operations and realizing you're never going to walk again, and then the questions about God and why has this happened to you and what was your purpose and meaning in life going to be? All of this started coming to the fore and you had a real struggle. And I want you to tell us about that struggle because a lot of folks that are listening to you, they've got that struggle right now. Stick with us. We'll be right back.

Dr. John Ankerberg: All right, we're back. We're talking with Dr. Michael Easley and with Johnny Erickson Tata. As you've heard, Johnny severed her spinal cord in a diving accident at age 17, causing quadriplegia, has been confined to that wheelchair for 45 years. Two years ago, she was diagnosed with breast cancer. Recently, due to a fracture in her sacrum, the large triangular bone at the base of the spine. For some reason, she's living in constant pain, agony. Okay?

Dr. John Ankerberg: And we'll talk about Michael in a little bit here. But Johnny, let's continue the story as you came to grips with what you were facing, you also had to think about God and why he had let these things happen. And there were questions that you've written about. First of all, does God even exist? And if he does, you know, if all things work together for good, how in the world does this paralysis work for my good? And you said you didn't know. Take me through your thinking because a lot of folks in our audience right now are saying, you know, I've got this, whatever they've got. And they're saying, I wasn't expecting this one. And, you know, it's I feel like God's let me down. I'm disappointed with God.

Guest (Female): Hmm.

Dr. John Ankerberg: Did you feel that way?

Guest (Female): Well, I described to you in the other segment how I was on a striker frame. You know, three hours lying face up, strapped on another piece of canvas, flip me over three hours face down. And during that face down time, I with a mouth stick, was able to flip pages of the Bible and went from Job and started perusing the New Testament, but I'll tell you what, it seemed to I mean, I'd I'd read these verses like in James chapter 1 verse 2. "Welcome this as a friend. Consider it pure pure pure joy when you encounter trials of all kinds." Yikes!

Guest (Female): Flip someplace else. Romans 5:3, "Rejoice in your suffering." And then in Philippians, "Oh my goodness, I'm to I'm to consider this as a gift. It has been granted unto you to suffer for his sake." It's like, it's like these scriptures seem to blithely ignore the the the pain that I was facing. It just ricocheted off my heart, all of this.

Guest (Female): Shortly after, um, uh, those operations when I began to heal and eventually they took me out of the striker frame and put me in a six-bed ward with five other girls in in an actual hospital bed. I was fighting God one night. 2:00 AM, when all my roommates are asleep, wanting so desperately to cry, but I dare not, because there was nobody around to wipe my nose or dry my eyes, and it's bad enough being paralyzed without being messy and paralyzed.

Guest (Female): And I remember one night, I turned my head on the pillow, and there standing in the doorframe of this six-bed ward was this silhouetted figure. I could see this person against the lights of the nurse's station, all the nurses were on break. Nobody was in the hallways. This figure gets down on its hands and knees and starts to crawl into our ward and past my sleeping roommates toward my side of the room. And I'm looking, scared to death, "Who is this?"

Guest (Female): And this individual comes close up by the side of my hospital bed, peers through the guardrail, and, "Oh my goodness, it's my high school girlfriend Jackie." She she's all she's the girl that with whom I share boyfriends and milkshakes and hockey sticks. And she peers through the guardrail, and I said, "Jackie, if they catch you here, they're going to kick you out. What are you doing here?" "Shh," she said.

Guest (Female): And she gently stood up and with a clunk, clunk, lowered the guardrail to my hospital bed, and then, as high school girls will do in pajama sleepovers, she she just kind of snuggled in the bed next to me, just lying right next to me, and grabbed my arm, my hand. I could not feel this, but in the dark, she held it up so I could see it silhouetted, my arm entwined with hers, raised up. And then she turned on the pillow, and with her lips just an inch from my ear, began whispering, "Man of sorrows, what a name for the Son of God who came."

Guest (Female): I can't repeat it. It was 44 years ago, and the memory still hits me in the gut and in the heart. Ruined sinners to reclaim. Hallelujah, what a savior. And there was something about that, something that made Jesus very real. It was as if all those times the bullets of God's word that ricocheted off my heart suddenly hit home because she in some way embodied Christ's love for me.

Guest (Female): And it was so profound that all my questions just, even though they didn't get answered that night, they they just didn't seem as urgent. They didn't seem as insistent. And so when she left that night, this unbelievable peace that really passed all my human understanding seemed to safeguard my heart.

Guest (Female): And I think looking back, I think what happened that night is that I experienced what we all experience when we ask why or, "God, how could you?" or, "I don't understand." We don't want answers because I'm not so sure if God answered us, it would satisfy us. For me, had God answered me back then, it would have been like pouring million-gallon truths into my 1-ounce pee brain. I just don't think I could have understood it all. I think when we're hurting, all we want is assurance. Just just this this fatherly, daddy-like assurance that there there, sweetheart,