"Hello, Jesus, this is Joe."

It was the time of the Great Depression, and now out of work Joe struggled to care for his wife and two children. He found a broken pushcart in a dump and repaired it, and every day and far into the night he pushed his cart around the city looking for any discarded thing he could find that he might be able to sell. He became a familiar figure around the city dumps, searching desperately through the discarded trash, along with dozens of others who were just as desperate. He could never bring himself to go home at night until he had groceries or money he could bring his family, no matter how little.

Before the depression, Joe and his family had gone to church every Sunday morning and Wednesday evening, faithfully, joyfully, rejoicing in the Lord of their salvation. But now all his time was used in keeping his family alive. Yet every day, no matter where he was in the city, at exactly noon he would manage to be near a church. They were all open in those days, and Joe would put his pushcart near the door where he felt it would be safe for a few minutes, hurry to the front of the church, stand quietly for a few moments, and then look toward Heaven and say, "Hello, Jesus, this is Joe." Then he would hurry back to his pushcart and continue his unending search for anything to keep his family alive.

Then a whooping cough plague swept through the city, taking Joe's wife and children with it, and weakening him so badly that he could no longer push his cart far enough to find anything. He lost his one-room apartment, and had to live in the streets. They found him one day in an alley, barely breathing, and took him to the charity ward of the city hospital. There his life continued to drain from him.

Yet even in his growing weakness, Joe always had a gentle smile on his face, as if he had a secret only he knew, and even as his life faded more each day, he continually cheered the patients around him, even the nurses. One day the ward's Head Nurse said to him, "Joe, how can you be so happy all the time, even as sick as you are? You're always cheering up everyone in the ward, but with all your family gone no one ever comes to see you to cheer you up."

"Oh, that's where you're wrong," Joe said, "I have a visitor every day."

"Why, Joe," the nurse said, "I've never seen anyone visit you."

"Oh, yes," Joe said. "Every day at exactly noon, my visitor comes and stands at the foot of my bed and says, "Hello, Joe, this is Jesus."