Biography

Dennis Abeene grew up in Oregon's Willamette valley. During his junior year of high school he was diagnosed with an incurable kidney disease. The following year, during the first ever healing service at a small non-denominational church in Albany, he went forward for prayer. Standing up front waiting to be prayed for, he was confident that God had the power to heal him, but he also knew he had done nothing to deserve such a gift from the Creator.

As he was being prayed for by a college-aged believer, he opened his eyes to catch a glimpse of the person praying for him. To his amazement she had an aura surrounding her, as if a bright light was shining brilliantly behind her.

At his next regularly scheduled medical checkup for his kidney disease, the doctors were unable to find any abnormality with his kidney function. He was told at that time that he was the second person in Medical Journal history to recover from the disease. At that point in his young life he knew that God must have healed him for a reason, but what that reason was remained unclear.

Within a year his parents divorced, shattering Dennis' life. His father, who had been diagnosed with schizophrenia, proved himself to be an unfaithful husband and chose not to be a part of Dennis' life from that point on.

Reeling form his loss of security and stability within his home life Dennis strayed from the God who had healed him and plunged headlong into the drug culture. In one year, five of his friends died from drug related deaths. Dennis saw the deterioration of his marriage and his hope for the future all go up in smoke (illegal smoke). He truly believes the reason he was spared from the same fate as his friends was because his mother faithfully prayed for him every day and that God had not given up on him. He still had a purpose for Dennis' life.

In 1981 Dennis gave up the drug filled uncertainty and embraced the promise written in the book of Jeremiah, chapter 29, verses 11 thru 13 which states, "For I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord. They are plans for good and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope. In those days when you pray, I will listen. You find me when you seek me, if you look for me in earnest."

Shortly after that God laid it on Dennis' heart to reconcile with his father. Dennis went to his father and told him that he had forgiven him for all of the pain that he had caused in Dennis' life. Forgiveness had built a relational bridge that was seldom traveled because shortly after that Dennis' father was arrested and imprisoned, where he died.

Close to twenty years later, Dennis now realizes the plan that God had for him. Through the bestowing of God's gift of Christian cowboy poetry upon Dennis he is equipped to make an impact on the churched, the unchurched, the cowboy and the non-cowboy as he shares his poetry, cowboy poetry with a message. Sometimes humorous, sometimes thought provoking, but always in the hope that God may be glorified and that lives will be touched for Jesus.