them. I recognized them. They were the ones I had sent.


“I want you to know that it was your letters that helped me get out of that hospital,” she said. “I hid them so they wouldn’t be taken from me. I read them over and over again, until they sank deep into my mind and heart. They gave me hope when I had no hope.” Her voice broke and tears ran silently down her cheeks.


Ann sat staring at the floor, her hands twisting in her lap. I wondered what medication she was on and if she would even remember this visit.


About a month later Ann’s husband called me, demanding to know who I was and why I visited his wife. “She doesn’t need to hear this ‘God loves you’ non- sense,” he said angrily. “And stop writing


was a knock at my kitchen door. As I opened it, a very attractive woman said brightly, “Hi, Joanne.”


She wore a red dress with a beautiful scarf tied loosely around her neck. Her


I started to speak, but could not. I just hugged her, and we wept in each other’s arms for several minutes. Joy and thank- fulness were mingled in those tears. I made some tea as she shared her story with me. The problems we had dis- cussed in the hospital represented only a fraction of the painful events in her life. Yet, here she was, telling me how she now knew that God loved her and that she was His child. She was beginning to enjoy life for the first time in years. At one point in the conversation, she asked why I had stopped writing. When I hesitated, she asked if it was because of her husband. I nodded.


“I thought so,” she said, “but now all that is part of the past and it’s time for me to look toward the future.” She reached for my hand. “My husband and I are getting help to give our marriage


WINDOWLESS ROOM


to her.” He slammed down the receiver. Oh, how I wanted to give him a piece of my mind! But I now had a difficult decision to make. If I continued writing, would this cause more problems for Ann? If I stopped, it would be breaking my promise to her.


It would probably have been better if I had never gotten involved at all.


Over the next few months I continued to pray for her, but gradually got busy and involved with other things and Ann was a little less in my thoughts. One afternoon about a year later there


shiny black hair fell in soft waves to her shoulders and her dark eyes sparkled with amusement as she realized she looked only vaguely familiar to me.


“You don’t recognize me, do you?” she said. “I’m Ann.”


I was speechless. This certainly didn’t look anything like the woman I had vis- ited in the psychiatric ward. I invited her inside. She sat down and slowly opened her purse.


“I want to show you something,” she said as she removed a collection of cards and notes with a pink ribbon tied around


another chance. Either way, I have a new life ahead of me.”


I thought of Philippians 3:13: “forget- ting what lies behind and reaching for- ward to what lies ahead” (NASB). After Ann left, I felt a sense of pro- found wonder as I realized how God had used my willingness—however reluctant at first—along with one hospital visit and some letters to bring love and healing into a seemingly hopeless situation.


Joanne Jacquart-Pyle lives in Umatilla, Florida.


EVANGEL • SEP 2010 9


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