Josè.

“Why didn’t they just let me die?” wailed Jose as he sat on the curb of a busy South American street and tried to tuck his bare feet under his ragged clothing. José was only nine years old, but he had already had more than his share of troubles.

“I wish I had never been born,” he sobbed. “Anything would be better than this.”

Rain was pelting down, and José crouched beside the gutter watching the water run into the big drainpipe a few metres away. “I wonder if I am small enough to go down the pipe with the water,” he asked himself. “It would be a quick way to die.”

From the day José was born he had been sickly. Doctors finally informed his parents that the boy had a heart ailment. He must always be kept quiet, the doctor said. He could never run and play. They only thing that would help him would be a heart operation. José’s parents were very poor and lived in a remote village, but the doctor assured them that a heart operation would probably make their son normal, and he urged them to take him to the city for surgery.

For several years Jose’s parents saved, and then one happy day they traveled all the way to the big city. The doctor, a great man of renown, felt sorry for the boy and decided to perform the operation for far less than the usual fee. So José underwent surgery for his heart. However, somewhere along the way a tube that the doctor had pushed up though Jose’s arm into his heart was left in much too long and when it was discovered gangrene had already set in. To save Jose’s life the arm must be amputated.

By this time Jose’s parents had returned to their village leaving José alone in the hospital. The doctor had told them that José would be at least a couple of months to get well, and the parents could not afford to stay away from home that long. When Jose’s arm had to be amputated, the hospital sent a message to the parents. The answer the parents sent back was enough to break the heart of any seven-year-old. His parents didn’t want him! “Take him to an orphanage,” they said, “or let him beg. He is no good to us.”

Despite that cruel message José was happy – as long as he was at the hospital. The nurses were kind to him, and because everyone felt sorry for him, they spoiled him completely. But a day came when he had to go. Room had to be made for other patients, and the orphanages were full.

What could a boy do with only one arm? The day José was discharged from the hospital he became a beggar.

Some people were kind to him as he went from house to house, but many slammed the door in his face or scalded him for bothering them. So, José grew very thin. He was barely able to keep life in his small body. The only clothes he had were now too small and very dirty. He spent nights huddled under a newspaper in a vacant lot. Sometimes he tried the luxury of a park bench, but a policeman always found him and sent him away. Lice swarmed over his scalp. The one-armed beggar was a pitiful sight.

The rain stopped. José got up slowly and started towards a house where he was reasonably sure of getting a crust of bread. At the iron gate he rang the bell. A maid answered, upon seeing José she brought him the biggest piece of bread he could ever imagine seeing.

“Where do you live?” she asked as José wolfed the food down.

“I’m an orphan,” Jose said timidly, “I don’t have any home.”

That evening when the people of the big house came home the maid told them about José. “He is so small and so dirty and so thin,” she said, “and he only has one arm. Couldn’t we send him to our orphanage out on the river.?”

So, the next time Jose came the kind people took him in and cleaned him up, and in a few weeks, they sent him to the Seventh-day Adventist orphanage.

How happy José was! Since he had left the hospital two years before he had never been so happy. Everyone was kind to him. He had plenty to eat and he was learning how to work with his one arm. No one would have recognized the little beggar boy that sat on the curb and wished he were dead.

But the best was yet to come. José went to school and church and found out about the love of God. Soon after that he had a second heart operation. He gave his heart to Jesus and became a new boy. Then to make everything complete the school helped him get an artificial arm and taught him how to use it.

Now that he is older, one has to look twice to discover that José has only one arm, but no one needs to look more than once to know that José has a brand-new heart for love, joy, peace, and all the other good things fill his life. The only begging he now does is when he asks people to give their hearts to the Lord.