Joni & Ken Read online

  Next steps for Joni and Ken involve meeting with a medical oncologist to determine the kind and course of chemotherapy she will undergo. Joni adds, “Please pray for the many decisions we will be making over the next few days as we begin battling this cancer.”

  JULY 3, 2010

  Ken and Joni’s longtime friends, Al and Margaret Sanders, their son Jim and their daughter Peg, had been in the hospital waiting room, praying for Joni during the course of her surgery.

  The next day was Sunday, July 4, and Al had called on Saturday to ask if they could bring some food over to the house that day and visit for a while. Would Joni be up to it? Ken smiled at the prospect. “We’d love it,” he said. “Come anytime. You guys are just like family.”

  “Better than family,” Al replied with a chuckle. “We know when it’s time to go home.”

  It just so happened that Saturday, the third, was Ken and Joni’s twenty-eighth wedding anniversary. Later, they would remark to each other that it was the sweetest either of them could remember, though neither could say just why. Maybe it was the tender, careful way Ken emptied the drains from Joni’s chest, still raw and bruised. Or the way he kept adjusting the pillows to keep her right arm elevated, the arm where so many lymph nodes had been removed. Maybe it was because they just sat together in the living room, having no other plans. Funny, how the conversation took them places they had never been before. It was good to just be quiet sometimes too, watching the afternoon sunlight play over the lattice, sparkle from the pool outside, and weave dreamy shadow patterns on the carpet. And the little hummingbirds had seemed especially busy, darting around their feeders but never quite getting their fill.

  And the Sanders and Peg were coming tomorrow. Wasn’t God good! Who would have thought there would be a little Fourth of July party just days after the surgery? Around 8:00 p.m., Ken, who had been reading a history of the Battle of the Bulge, stirred himself. He should do some things to get the patio ready for guests. Good grief, here it was July, and he hadn’t even gotten out the cushions for their patio chairs yet.

  “I’m going out to the garage,” he called to Joni in the bedroom. “I’ll just be a minute or two.”

  Out in the garage, Ken realized his task might involve a little more excavation than he’d thought. Pushing the garage door opener, he climbed into the car and turned the ignition.

  And immediately heard Joni’s voice. Singing.

  In the house? No, of course not. Over the car speakers. A CD? No, there was nothing in the player. This was radio. KKLA. Joni was doing one of her devotionals — one he hadn’t heard before. But how could that be? He glanced at his watch. KKLA didn’t broadcast her at that hour.

  … In seasons of distress and grief

  My soul has often found relief,

  And oft escaped the tempter’s snare

  By thy return, sweet hour of prayer!4

  This is amazing. I should go in and tell Joni, he thought. I should turn on the radio in the house and let her listen. But it was only a five-minute devotional. If he went into the house, he would miss her words. Somehow, he felt he was supposed to hear them. So he sat in the car, in the dim light of a single overhead bulb, listening to his wife through the car speakers.

  “Life is hard for people in wheelchairs,” she was saying. “But it’s just as hard when you’re the caregiver. So let me take a minute and pray. I want to pray, not only for you who are listening today who might have a physical disability, but let me pray for the people who help, OK?”

  God spoke to him in that moment. “This is for you, Ken. Joni is praying for you.”

  What are the odds of this happening? he asked himself. What are the odds of my being in the car at all at eight o’clock at night, and then turning the ignition and hearing my wife’s voice, in stereo? Talking about praying for caregivers!

  “Dear Father in heaven,” she prayed, “as I think of the cross Your Son endured for me, I thank You that the cross You have called us to bear will never, never be heavier than You have designed. Our cross is exactly the right size and weight for each of us, Your willing children. And daily as we pick up this cross and follow You, bless You for more than matching the burden with grace upon grace upon grace …”

  Grace upon grace. Ken knew beyond a doubt he was in one of those holy moments, when God seemed to be speaking directly to him, as if he’d been the only one in all of greater Los Angeles to hear this broadcast.

  She went on. “And if at times our hardships seem too heavy a thing to daily endure, if these struggles are too much for our caregivers, too much for our husbands or wives or children to bear, then remind us that You are there right beside us, shouldering the worst of the weight of the cross. Never let us forget that You are with us through it all, whether it is we who are always sitting down in a stand-up world, or whether it is our caregivers who are always tending to our needs. And … please, Lord Jesus, expand our vision, that we can appreciate the influence our trust in You is having on people, others who watch and learn, even from a distance. For that brings You glory! And brings rich and wonderful meaning to our days. In Jesus’ name. Amen.”

  Ken switched off the ignition and sat for a moment. Then he closed the garage door and walked back into the house, a look of wonder on his face, the patio cushions forgotten.

  “You’ll never believe what just happened,” he told Joni. After he had related the event, she looked into his eyes as if she’d somehow known about it all along and wasn’t surprised at all.

  “God’s favor is resting on you, Ken.”

  He believed that, even though it didn’t make much earthly sense right then. God’s favor was all around them, right in the middle of all the heartache, weakness, and fear. What had Joni said? “Ken, I believe this cancer has come with great purpose.”

  If she could believe that, then so could he.

  JULY 4, 2010

  It was one of those days when a person could reflect on the multiple millions of people crowded into Southern California and say, “I get it.”

  The sky was bright blue, with a few thin, wispy clouds; the day was warm and mild. A light breeze wafting through the valley blew just hard enough to make the roses along the cast-iron fence nod in affirmation.

  Margaret Sanders had brought her keyboard, and after lunch she and Al set it up out on the patio. Joni sat in her chair in the shade of an umbrella, her arm propped up on a chair, allowing postsurgical fluids to drain from tiny ports under her arm. A phenomenal pianist, Margaret began playing hymn after hymn, and no one needed a hymnbook as they all sang along.

  How wonderful, Joni mused. This was one of the most precious, extraordinary moments of fellowship she could remember for years and years. Sitting on the patio of her beautiful home with people who loved Jesus and loved them, looking out across the valley at the Santa Susana Mountains, singing hymns and praising God on a sunny Fourth of July. And it would have never happened, those people together in that place singing those words of praise, declaring God’s worth with that particular tender joy, apart from her having breast cancer. Already, already God was working things — even hurtful, wounding things — together for good.

  Ken was reflecting on how often he had sat in that same backyard on a summer evening listening to more abrasive music drifting across the valley—metal or rap blasting from one of his neighbor’s stereos.

  But not today. On this sweet summer Sunday, Mötley Crüe and Jay-Z had Martin Luther to contend with.

  A mighty fortress is our God,

  A bulwark never failing;

  Our helper He amid the flood

  Of mortal ills prevailing …5

  Our Helper! Yes. Joni prayed, Praise You, Helper, Counselor, and Healer! She couldn’t remember having had a keyboard out on their patio before. It sounded extraordinarily good. Couldn’t have been better in a cathedral. And those words, penned in Germany back in 1529, somehow seemed to have been written just for them, for that very day, with her arm propped up on a chair, draining fluids f
rom a radical mastectomy. Surely God had that very moment in mind when he prompted Luther to dip a new quill into his inkwell and scratch out those lyrics on a fresh sheet of parchment.

  And though this world with devils filled,

  Should threaten to undo us,

  We will not fear, for God hath willed

  His truth to triumph through us.

  The prince of darkness grim,

  We tremble not for him —

  His rage we can endure,

  For lo, his doom is sure:

  One little word shall fell him.

  Jesus. One little word? Two syllables? Perhaps. But a big enough word to make angels and devils alike bow in submission.

  JULY 13, 2010

  Through it all, Joni hadn’t cried very much. In fact, she couldn’t remember shedding a single tear since her diagnosis. It became one of those strange seasons when she felt like an outside observer of events in her life, some interested-but-coolly-objective third person, looking on her circumstances from a safe and hygienic distance. She’d heard people talk about that sort of thing before, how the mind sometimes grapples with traumatic events by casting a cloak of unreality over them. This isn’t me they’re talking about. This isn’t my mastectomy. This isn’t my cancer. This isn’t my crisis.

  That was part of it. But another part of it was her sheer determination to “see it through.” She had seen crisis after crisis in her life. Was she going to let this new development overwhelm her? No! She would not. This will NOT catch me off guard, she told herself. This will NOT throw me for a loop. This will NOT make a basket case out of me. God is in this. Of course He is. He is sovereign. I’ve always believed that. He is in control. I must trust Him at all costs.

  Those thoughts had come with just a little bit of pride. She commended herself on “doing it right” and “handling it all well” and “practicing what she had preached” for so many years.

  But now she, Ken, Judy, and Kathy, Joni’s sister, were crowded into the medical oncologist’s absurdly small consulting room. And as Dr. Shahryar Ashouri took his seat and turned to face them, something about all those strong self-assurances and affirmations threatened to turn into Jell-O.

  He spoke in quiet, matter-of-fact terms, sketching out the course of therapy she could expect in the coming days. He didn’t speak in a medical monotone, nor did he seem unkind or unfeeling. It was the presentation of a professional who had gone over the same ground many times before, with countless other groups of shell-shocked, wide-eyed patients and family members. His detailing of the upcoming treatments was calm, factual, comprehensive, a bit dry … and utterly relentless.

  They would check her back into the hospital. Insert a surgical port into her chest. Begin a regimen of the chemotherapy drugs Taxotere and Cytoxan. She would be sick much of the time. She would lose her hair. She would lose her eyebrows. Her fragile bones would grow even thinner. She would be prone to lung and bladder infections. Dear God, where did it stop? She would be anemic and exhausted. She would have a dry mouth, mouth sores, and changes — possibly permanent — in her ability to taste and smell. She might experience severe diarrhea. She could expect rashes or hives or cracked nails or …

  It seemed to go on and on. A veritable catalog of pain and suffering and loss and multiplied indignities, all spoken in that calm, clinical voice. And then he excused himself for a moment to check on another patient, left the room, and closed the door behind him.

  For Joni, the closing door opened up a floodgate. Suddenly, it crashed in on her. All of it. The cancer. The surgery. The cancer-and-surgery-on-top-of-endless-pain-on-top-of-paralysis. The exhaustion. The loss of her breast. Going back to the hospital. A port in her chest — for poison. Losing her hair. Death, somewhere back there in the shadows. She collapsed into convulsive sobbing, weeping for all the losses and pain and disappointments here and now and long, long ago. The unshed tears of departed years.

  “I can’t do this … it’s too much … I can’t,” she sniffed, her eyes and nose running.

  Immediately, Judy walked over to Joni’s chair, put her arms around her, and let her friend fall against her shoulder. Judy gave her a squeeze as sobs wracked Joni’s frail body. She held her like that, murmuring words she might have whispered to a lonely, heartbroken child.

  And then something unusual happened.

  Ken stood up and said, “I’ll do that.”

  Judy, more than a little surprised, looked up at him, uncertain at first about what he intended, and whether to let Joni go.

  “Let me take over,” he said quietly. And just like that, he did. Ken, her husband, took over. He put his strong arms around Joni, let her rest her head against his broad chest, and held her like that for a long time.

  Joni, crying so hard she’d seemed oblivious to everything, wasn’t oblivious to this. Something in her noted this … change. This alteration in long-established realities. Through twenty-eight years of marriage, when it came to anything medical, Ken deferred to Judy. Judy was always there. Judy was a nurse. Judy had done it a thousand times. Judy knew the better way. Judy didn’t mind.

  Had he really just said, “Let me take over”? When had she heard him say that before? And somehow, this felt like something more than an impulse. She’d heard steel in his voice. This was something new. Possibly something wonderful. Perhaps even a gift.

  And in that instant a new thought knifed through a fog of emotion and weariness.

  I don’t want to die.

  CHAPTER THREE

  THE PRAYER

  For I know the thoughts and plans that I have for you,

  says the Lord, thoughts and plans for welfare and peace

  and not for evil, to give you hope in your final outcome.

  JEREMIAH 29:11 AMP

  BACK TO SUNDAY, APRIL 20, 1980

  On most Sundays, being in church felt like a little breath of heaven.

  But not every Sunday.

  And this was one of those not-every-Sundays at Grace Community Church. Then again, maybe it was just her, feeling distracted, disjointed, and a little emotionally flat. Judy and Kerbe, one of Joni’s many helpers through the years, had gotten her ready for church, and Judy, who knew her all too well, had asked her flat out, “Are you all right?”

  One of the elders led the opening prayer. When he was done, Joni realized that even though she had closed her eyes and bowed her head, she really hadn’t entered into the prayer at all and couldn’t remember a word of it. The same elder led the hymn. She loved the hymn singing at Grace Community. Loved the harmony. The words. Everything about hymns of the faith. But this one? Sure, the words to “Blessed Assurance” stirred her soul, but the tune? It could, at times — depending on who was playing the piano — sound, well … clunky. The downbeat could be so heavy, like marching to the beat of a drum.

  This is my story, this is my song,

  Praising my Savior all the day long;

  This is my story, this is my song,

  Praising my Savior all the day long.6

  Joni gamely chipped in a strong harmony, but after stomping along on the second chorus, she gave up singing. It was too much effort. She would just listen. Judy, holding the hymnbook, gave her a quick sidewise glance.

  Why did everything feel just a tad mechanical? Was it her imagination, or did it seem like the people around her weren’t entering in today. Or maybe it’s you, Joni, she said to herself. YOU aren’t entering in, and you’re projecting your lack of enthusiasm on everyone around you.

  Still, something seemed missing today. A Sunday like flat Coke. No, that wasn’t fair … but something was different. During the announcements, there seemed to be more coughing, shifting, digging in purses, clearing of throats, murmuring, and rustling of papers than usual. Two women a few rows back were just talking right out loud, making no pretense of even a stage whisper. How inconsiderate.

  Joni glanced over Judy’s shoulder at the open bulletin. Oh no. Wouldn’t you know it! They were going to have a guest spe
aker that day — someone she had never heard of. She had been looking forward to John MacArthur stepping up to the pulpit, opening his Bible, looking out across the congregation, gathering everyone in with an authoritative glance, and saying, “Let’s look together in the Word of God at 1 Corinthians chapter 16 …” Or wherever in the Bible he was, it didn’t really matter.

  He always began like that. Always cut right to the chase. There was no reflecting on yesterday’s sports scores or news items, no banal observations on the weather, no cute stories or jokes or warm and fuzzy personal anecdotes to ease people into the message. It was — boom — “Open your Bibles to Hebrews 11 …” And then he was off to the races, confident and sure of his material. This was straight-up, no-apology, down-the-line expository preaching, and you could always count on a meaty, challenging message right out of the chute. Like that series on Romans. Oh, my goodness, how many weeks were they in Romans? Before it was over, it had seemed like Dr. MacArthur and the apostle Paul were team teaching. And people couldn’t seem to get enough of it. For years now, people from all over Southern California had been driving up to Sun Valley in north Los Angeles to soak it in.

  If he had been there that day, Dr. MacArthur wouldn’t have let Joni’s thoughts ramble. She was quite sure of that. Her pastor would have pulled her mind back from its wanderings and settled her on a focused, productive path. He would have helped rivet her back on the Word and locked her thoughts on the right frequency. But Dr. MacArthur was away at a conference. This was a guest speaker, and he didn’t begin by saying, “Open your Bibles to …” No, he began with a story. Which was OK, but … a little long. And really, how in the world was he going to tie it in, and what was he going to tie it to? Or … was he going to tie it in at all? He had evidently moved on to something else, but it wasn’t what you’d call a smooth transition. More like a speed bump at thirty miles an hour.