Joni Eareckson Tada already knew what it meant to lose control of her body. At seventeen, a diving accident in the Chesapeake Bay left her a quadriplegic — paralysed from the shoulders down. She spent two years in rehabilitation learning to paint with a brush between her teeth. She built a ministry, wrote dozens of books, became an advocate for disability rights worldwide, and spent five decades showing people that a life of suffering could also be a life of extraordinary purpose.
Then, in 2010, her doctor told her she had breast cancer.
The Diagnosis
Breast cancer. For most people that sentence alone is enough to unhinge everything. For a woman who cannot move her own arms, who needs help with every basic function of daily life, who has already carried more physical suffering than most people could imagine — it should have been the breaking point.
It was not.
When the oncological surgeon delivered the news, something happened that surprised everyone in the room, possibly including Joni herself. She relaxed. She smiled. Not a forced smile. Not the brave face people put on in doctor's offices. A genuine, settled smile that came from somewhere deeper than circumstances could reach.
She later described the moment: "I relaxed and smiled, knowing that my sovereign God loves me dearly and holds me tightly in His hands."
The Fear
That does not mean there was no fear. Joni is honest about the battle. Fear, anger, depression — they all knocked on the door. She describes the process not as absence of emotion, but as authority over it: "I make my emotions obey me. I will not be led by them or allow them to rule my life."
This is not positive thinking. This is a woman who has spent fifty years learning what it means to bring every thought under the authority of someone bigger than her circumstances. She did not ignore the fear. She refused to let it have the final word.
The Encounter
What Joni discovered through cancer was something she thought she already knew — but deeper. God's love was not just a doctrine she believed. It was a force that physically displaced fear in her body. Not gradually. Not after weeks of processing. In the moment. In the doctor's office. On the operating table.
She describes it as God forcing her to recognise her desperate need of Him — and then meeting that need with a love so tangible it made fear irrelevant. Not absent. Irrelevant. The fear was still in the room. But God's love was bigger than the room.
The Healing
Joni underwent a mastectomy and treatment. She was eventually declared cancer-free. But she will tell you that the greater healing was not physical. It was the discovery that perfect love really does cast out fear — not as a nice idea, but as a lived experience in a cancer ward.
When the cancer returned years later, she walked into the same peace. Same smile. Same settled certainty. She knew whose hands she was in.
What This Means for You
If you are sitting with a cancer diagnosis right now and fear is the loudest voice in the room — Joni Eareckson Tada has something to say to you. Not from a place of theory. From a wheelchair. From a body that has known more suffering than most of us will ever face.
Fear is real. But it is not the truest thing about your situation. The truest thing is that you are loved by a God who holds you in His hands — and His love is stronger than anything a scan can show.
You do not need to be brave. You do not need to pretend the fear is not there. You just need to know that someone bigger is holding you. And His grip does not loosen when the diagnosis gets worse.
Perfect love casts out fear. Not some fear. Not a little fear. All of it. Joni knows. She has lived it — twice.
