Sharing Hope through My Quadriplegia and Suffering
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Life Can Change in an Instant…
On August 11, 2011 Cameron Horner was on vacation. Eighteen years old and set to go to Bible college, he relaxed with his family at a familiar spot beside a lake. Running down the dock he meant to take a shallow dive—but he lost control.
Cameron remembers his head striking the bottom of the lake: a shock through his body, a little discomfort in his neck, and the realization that he could die. In that moment Cameron began to pray. In the moments that passed before his friend pulled him out of the water, Cameron experienced surprising peace as a flow of God’s promises ran through his mind.
Living with Paralysis
“Dear friends, do not be surprised at the fiery ordeal that has come on you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you. But rejoice inasmuch as you participate in the sufferings of Christ, so that you may be overjoyed when his glory is revealed.”
1 Peter 4:12–13
Like Joni Eareckson Tada, Cameron’s accident left him paralyzed and in a wheelchair. He joins the podcast to talk about how God has filled him with strength and grace amid his suffering, which has led people to know Jesus and displayed God’s power through trials.
Suffering hits every person in a unique way. In the initial wake of her accident and paralysis, Joni struggled to see God’s hand in her new disability and her suffering. But for Cameron, his newfound hardships quickly drove him deeper into trusting Jesus. And when hard questions arose, Cameron found the help he needed both in community and in Scripture.
Cameron says, “We have all these existential questions and that’s fine. But there are actually answers, right? We were not left without answers. Suffering is a part of this. And Jesus said, ‘Take up your cross.’ for a reason…. And it just makes me think of what [Scripture says] to us: ‘Why are you surprised that you’re experiencing so many trials?’”
Suffering Turns Us into Ministers
“Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God. For just as we share abundantly in the sufferings of Christ, so also our comfort abounds through Christ. If we are distressed, it is for your comfort and salvation; if we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which produces in you patient endurance of the same sufferings we suffer. And our hope for you is firm, because we know that just as you share in our sufferings, so also you share in our comfort.”
2 Corinthians 1:3–7
Cameron has seen God work powerfully, especially as he shares the story of his suffering and the comfort he has found in Christ.
He says: “If you’ve been through something hard, you have a story. You have an experience. You have a testimony of God working… You can now turn around and you can use that in the life of someone else that you’re going to come across. And, as one who’s gotten to experience that, doing that over and over again, I just want to say it’s one of the most glorious, fulfilling, fruitful things in the life of a believer to be able to use the suffering that you’ve been through for the good of someone else.
Suffering turns all of us into ministers because we get to minister out of our suffering. The second thing that it does is it is producing something in us.”
Finding Belonging, Building Friendships
For many people living with disability, finding a sense of belonging can be difficult. Cameron has experienced this firsthand.
As he says: “A lot of times people with disabilities have a harder time starting or maintaining friendships or relationships because of the stigmas or because, you know, people just maybe don’t have patience for us all the time.”
For Cameron, his closest relationships today are with people who fully see and accept him for who he is—not despite his disability but because of what he brings to the table, in friendships and in the church.
Nothing Wasted
After his injury Cameron often thought people looked at his accident as a waste—a waste of his potential and of the future he could have expected. But God has not wasted anything…
Because of his experiences searching for true connection and belonging, Cameron has developed a heart for helping churches and other organizations minister to the disability community. That’s how Cameron Horner Ministries began—as Cameron responded to churches, schools, and other groups began asking him to come share his journey of faith and perseverance.
Cameron shared just a few ways God has used his suffering for good:
“He used [my suffering] to allow me to begin traveling and sharing my story all over the place. So I’ve gotten to see God’s hand at work in my life through the injury. And honestly, I’ve gotten to do some cool things, you know, gotten to meet and have coffee with Joni Eareckson Tada!
What a cool thing to travel India and go to Ireland and preach the Gospel in a little church in the countryside. I mean, just great adventures with Jesus because we gave him what we had… I had a broken neck and a broken spinal cord and a broken body, and I gave it to him, and he’s used it.”
Pressing On: How to Lean on Christ through Suffering
After more than 5 decades of living with quadriplegia and chronic pain, Joni Eareckson Tada knows what it means to press on through suffering. Listen as she encourages you to join her in living out Philippians 3:14.
