New Hope

When I knew Joanna in her late teens, she often stayed out of the community. People didn't know the reasons. After listening to Joanna's story, I understood her reasons for separating herself from others in many years. But now she is among friends and finds a new hope.

Joanna was a high school student. She made it through school because she studied very hard. In her senior year, she learned that her friends were going to colleges. She applied to some colleges in Liberal Arts. She hoped she would enter to a college with her modest intellectual ability. Most of her friends had been accepted in one college or another. Unfortunately, all the colleges that she applied rejected Joanna's application because of the educational pyramid, i.e., a good school usual accepts fewer applicants, and there were limited colleges in her small country. Joanna was stout and very depressed.

From that time on, she has often spent a great deal of time feeling sorry for herself. She lived out her years with little social contact--no friend and involvement in the community. The outcome was Joanna had lived a world in hiding and isolation.

When I met her in her early thirties and understood her situations, I helped her to see how she was making her life more difficult by thinking such discouraging thoughts. I encouraged her to learn what would broaden her vision to the world instead of narrowing it down to her with pains and disappointments. Joanna initiated a new routine. She began to improve her life by reading the Bible. She found encouragements and learned positive thinking in the Bible. Then, she meditated slowly on what she had read.

Joanna was reminded of a woman who was healed by a wondrous touch of faith in the Bible. This woman had been subjecting to bleeding for twelve years. Her condition was getting worse as she lost hope in many physicians. She spent many years in suffering, and feeling alienated and distressed. Surely, she found a new hope when she heard about Jesus, the healer. She came up behind Jesus in the crowd and touched his cloak because she thought she surely would be healed if touching his clothes. By faith, this woman with a positive thinking of touching Jesus' clothes was healed. Immediately, her bleeding was stopped and she felt in her body that she was freed from her suffering. She was freed from living in hopelessness when she found a new hope in Jesus that everyone needs.

Joanna feels she needs a new hope. She begins expanding her social life through her church contact. She joins a small outreach community group. Now Joanna is living her life fully and happily. Joanna knows that there is Hope in Jesus, who has power to heal her when she reached out to Him.