Ken Tada and Joni Eareckson’s love story: 31-years of marriage to a quadriplegic

There are the kinds of stories that inspire us to be better people, and then there are the ones that are genuinely remarkable.

Devout Christians Ken Tada and Joni Eareckson, a quadriplegic, have been married for 31 years. Recently, their amazing love story was written about by ABC.

Just last month, the couple release their new book, Joni & Ken: An Untold Love Story, a memoir of her current three year battle with breast cancer and his struggles with depression.

Eareckson, 63, has been a quadriplegic since she was 17 after a diving accident rendered her paralyzed from the neck down. She became an activist and leader in the disability movement by the time she was in her early thirties and met Tada, now 66.

Tada laughs that he had to change Eareckson's leg bag on their very first date at the movies.

"What goes in has to come out," Tada, now a retired high school history teacher, tells ABC. "This part of the date had not been covered."

Understandably, she had some reservations when she first met him, wondering about his intentions.

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"I was nervous when I met him," says Eareckson. "I had lived enough years as a single girl. I was traveling a great deal and enjoyed my freedom. No one had ever asked me out on a date."

Tada explains how his students were perplexed by the changes in his behaviour after meeting her.

"The kids couldn't figure out why I was working out so hard," he says. "But if I took her out, I had to do it myself, lift her in and out of the chair -- like curling 180 pounds."

Over the many years together, the couple achieved a degree of fame as their story became public. In 2010, they released a YouTube video giving an update on their lives. And Eareckson even has a Wikipedia entry under her name.

She knows how to type and paint with a brush between her teeth and was interviewed by Barbara Walters in 1974 on the "Today Show." After that appearance, a publisher asked if she would write a book.

"I said, 'You bet,' and my writing burgeoned from there," she says.

Joni sold more than four million copies and was translated into 50 languages.

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Their lives have been plagued with a incredible degree of hardship that they claim could never have been overcome without their faith in God.

"At some of the darkest times, if it wasn't for the fact that I believed in God, I wasn't sure I was going to make it," Tada says, referring to his midlife bout with depression.

The first few years of their marriage was an incredible adjustment for Tada, who took care of his wife's every physical need and tended to the house while hold holding down a full-time teaching job. He admits to feeling trapped during those year.

"It was a 24/7 routine and we hadn't anticipated it would be so wearing," he says. "It was physically exhausting and mentally challenging."

They got through that time with a persistent spirit from Eareckson.

"He was not the enemy, the wheelchair was not the enemy," she says. "The enemy was bigger than that and we were not going to start consuming each other with anger."

To this day, Tada's respect for his wife cannot be more obvious.

"She is a real warrior and a fighter."