Not long ago a man named Dean visited our Joni and Friends International Disability Center with his family. He was an outgoing brother in Christ, and he told me that we had something quite extraordinary in common. He said that 40 years ago, he and I were in the same hospital -- Rancho Los Amigos Hospital here in Southern California. I said Yes, I was at that hospital doing rehabilitation... it was just a short time after my diving accident back in 1967.
Yet as I looked closely at Dean, I had to tell him, "But, I don't remember you." That’s when I looked harder at his face and complexion, and I noticed how youthful he looked -- oh, perhaps in his late 30s or early 40s -- I began to wonder if he was making his story up. Dean did not look old enough to have been with me at Rancho Los Amigos Hospital four decades ago!
When I smiled and confessed to him my doubts about his memory, he told me the rest of the most amazing story. I learned that, yes, Dean was in that same hospital with me 40 years ago, but he was a one-year-old ventilator dependent premature baby. The circumstances surrounding his birth, and the fact that he had been placed by the state in a ward at Rancho Hospital was, well, heartbreaking to say the least – it was all because of related disabilities and a fearful birth mother who couldn’t handle the idea of raising a child with a handicap. Dean lived as a baby at Rancho Los Amigos Hospital for quite some time, until he was finally placed in a foster care home. The foster mother who raised him – and, yes, there were a lot of health issues related to his premature birth – the mother who raised him was a Christian and she was the one who led Dean to Jesus Christ when he was a child.
I looked at this man standing before me. He was absolutely effervescent about the Lord Jesus. Standing with him were his beautiful wife, and wonderful children. Yes, he appeared to have very slight residual effects of his disability, but certainly nothing that hindered his buoyant enthusiasm for God's amazing plan and provision for his life. And I am absolutely honored to think that I was at Rancho Los Amigos hospital – back then a frightened teenager sitting in a wheelchair – I was there, the same time that in another ward there was an abandoned and very tiny premature infant baby on a ventilator struggling for his life. Who would have guessed back then? Who could have foreseen what God knew all along 40 years ago? Amazing!
The Lord saw it all. As Psalm 139:16 says, “All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.” God has Dean’s future in His hands and, friend, He’s holding you fast in His grip, as well. His plans for you are a hopeful future – who would guess, who would foresee. All I know is what’s to come is going to be amazing.
Used by permission of
JONI AND FRIENDS
P.O. Box 3333
Agoura Hills, CA 93176
© Joni and Friends