When God Weeps: Why Our Sufferings Matter to the Almighty by Joni Eareckson Tada

If God is loving, why is there suffering? What’s the difference between permitting something and ordaining it? When bad things happen, who’s behind them--God or the devil? When suffering touches our lives, questions like these suddenly demand an answer. From our perspective, suffering doesn’t make sense, especially when we believe in a loving and just God. After more than thirty years in a wheelchair, Joni Eareckson Tada’s intimate experience with suffering gives her a special understanding of God’s intentions for us in our pain. In When God Weeps, she and lifelong friend Steven Estes probe beyond glib answers that fail us in our time of deepest need. Instead, with firmness and compassion, they reveal a God big enough to understand our suffering, wise enough to allow it—and powerful enough to use it for a greater good than we can ever imagine.

Author

Joni Eareckson Tada, the Founder and CEO of Joni and Friends International Disability Center, is an international advocate for people with disabilities. A diving accident in 1967 left Joni Eareckson, then 17, a quadriplegic in a wheelchair. After two years of rehabilitation, she emerged with new skills and a fresh determination to help others in similar situations. She founded Joni and Friends in 1979 to provide Christ-centered ministry to special-needs families, as well as training for churches. Joni and Friends serves thousands of special-needs families through Family Retreats, and has delivered over 170,000 wheelchairs and Bibles to needy individuals with disabilities in developing nations. Joni survived stage III breast cancer in 2010, yet keeps a very active schedule. Her newest book, A Spectacle of Glory, won best devotional book in the Evangelical Christian Publishers Association’s 2017 Christian Book Awards – it contains fresh biblical insights from her battle with chronic pain. Joni is General Editor of Tyndale’s Beyond Suffering Bible, a special edition published for those who suffer chronic conditions, and their caregivers. She and her husband Ken were married in 1982 and reside in Calabasas, California. You can learn more about Joni’s ministry at www.joniandfriends.org or can write her at response@joniandfriends.org.