Tuesday, July 27th Update from Joni

Tuesday, July 27th Update from Joni:

John Bunyan once wrote, “Conversion is not the smooth, easy-going process some men seem to think. It is wounding work, this breaking of the hearts; but without wounding there is no saving… Where there is grafting there is a cutting, the [thin, young branch] must be let in with a wound; to stick it onto the outside or tie it on with a string would be of no use. Heart must be set to heart and back to back, or there will be no sap from root to branch, and this I say, must be done by a wound.”

Never would I have dreamed before I broke my neck, that my conversion process would be as hard as it has been. I learned then — and am rehearsing afresh through this cancer — that there was no saving grace, no saving work apart from a wounding. Yes, the wounding of Christ on His cross, but also a wounding when you and I suffer and, as a result, are set, let in, cut into the body of Christ through affliction. Acts 14:22 describes it this way, “We must go through many hardships to enter the kingdom of God.”

As I heal from yesterday’s minor surgery to insert an implanted port (to help with my treatment), I’m thinking of many others who, even today, are being “set, let in, and cut into the body of Christ” through their afflictions — like over in Cameroon where one of our international Family Retreats is now underway; pray that many African children and adults with disabilities and their family members experience the refreshing grace and saving hope of Jesus this week! Onward and upward!

–Joni Eareckson Tada