As I was about to pass an elderly gentleman on the street, I felt a sudden urge from the Lord to speak with him.

"Hello, I'm Michael," I said as our eyes met.

"Hi, Michael. I'm Joe. Pleased to meet you," he replied in a strong Italian accent.

After a little small talk, I explained that I am a Christian volunteer and the streets of our city are my workplace. "It's amazing how many people need help with one problem or another these days," I said.

He nodded. Something was really worrying him, he said. He had developed a heart problem from years of heavy smoking and had had an operation, after which his doctors had given him five years to live. That was 17 years ago.

"My heart's been acting up since this morning," Joe went on to say. "I think this might be it."

I offered him some encouragement from the Bible, and he thanked me profusely. Then Joe asked how I'd ended up in a wheelchair.

At the time it did seem to me and everyone else like the worst thing that ever could have happened to me, but out of it came so much good.

"I broke my neck in a diving accident," I explained. "Australia Day, 1985, at the local river."

Joe stared at me in disbelief. "What hospital did they take you to?" he asked.

Then he told me that he distinctly remembered sitting outside the casualty ward at the same hospital that day, when a young man was rushed past him on a trolley. He had asked the hospital staff what had happened, and their brief account of a diving accident fit my own. He had felt so bad for the man on the trolley, he said, and had wondered how such a horrible thing could have happened to such a young person with so much to live for. What he meant, of course, was how could God have let something so horrible happen.

"At the time it did seem to me and everyone else like the worst thing that ever could have happened to me," I said, "but out of it came so much good. The best thing was that it was the beginning of a real and deep relationship with Jesus. Whatever God does, He does in love."

Joe wasn't religious or anything, he said, but he did believe in Jesus.

I then asked him if he would like to ask Jesus into his heart. He said that he would, and sincerely prayed with me to receive Jesus and His free gift of everlasting life. Good things are still coming out of my accident.