Joanna’s Return, Area Fellowship News
by Kim Langley

"When I kept silent about my sin, my body wasted away through my groaning all day long. For day and night Thy hand was heavy upon me; so my vitality was drained away as with the fever heat of summer. I acknowledged my sin to Thee, and my iniquity I did not hide; I said, ‘I will confess my transgressions to the Lord’; and Thou didst forgive the guilt of my sin."
-Ps. 32:3-5

Shock, disbelief, anger, hurt… 

These were my feelings that day in June last year, when I answered my mobile phone to hear that Jo had left home and the fellowship, by way of a note.

My sister, Faye, and I were at a friend’s house, where we had been invited for dinner. It must have seemed very strange to them when Faye and I left immediately.

It was appropriate that it rained on the way to the Langley’s house in Northampton. I remember crying and trying to figure out what had gone wrong and what we hadn’t talked about. Just the day before, we had enjoyed a fellowship outing to London to see the show, "Les Miserables." So, Jo’s note was totally out of the blue at the time, although it later became clear what had lead up to it.

Jon had a good guess at where Jo would be staying, so we went over there and asked Jo to look us in the eye and tell us that she wanted to leave. This is basically what she did, although she claimed that she was confused and didn’t know what she wanted. We told her that she could still choose God, and everything would be forgiven. Jo said that too much had happened already, that she didn’t want to confess. We wondered many times after that what she meant.

At this point, I realised that Jo really was going to do what "she" wanted to do, and I had a pretty good idea what that would look like. I think even then, I knew that she would come back to God, and us, but I wondered whether it would be in a few days or a few years….

During the time that Jo was away, I thought about her often, especially at the time of conferences when we all got together. I imagined what she might be doing at that very moment, and I always thought it would be something horrible (since she had left to live a sin life). It was weird that someone I thought I’d been close to suddenly became like a stranger, who I didn’t know or speak to anymore, I was scared to think about how low Satan would take Jo, before she realised that life wouldn’t work without Jesus Christ.

Earlier this year, my own life started to disintegrate when I let Satan get a hook in. I knew that I was in sin, but this remained unconfessed, as I tried to convince myself that it really wasn’t wrong, or that I could just move on and forget about it. However, the sin kept gnawing away, and I was trying to present an unconvincing, "right looking" facade, which wasn’t fooling any of the Christ people around me.

The whistle was finally blown on me when Faye woke me up at about 3:30 am on May 3rd to tell me that we were expecting a call from Jo, at any moment. She told me that Jo had phoned Ginny in the States, upset and admitting that everything was going wrong for her. Apparently, Jo wanted to get out of Northampton, and Robyn had suggested that she could move in with Faye and me! At that I knew my number was up because of my unbelief and there was no way I could be for Jo until I confessed my sin.

So, the following day as we arrived in Northampton, there were two things going on in me at once. First of all, there was the nervous excitement of seeing Jo again, as we were hoping, restored to God. Then there was also the inner sense of dread that I had to come clean and confess my sin.

When Jo walked in, she looked like the stranger, I mentioned earlier. Her hair and body seemed all wrong, and I had to look really closely at her face, to see the person I remembered as Jo. She looked like a "wild child" and so contrasted with the rest of us, sitting there in our clean clothes.

Jo talked about how miserable her life had been, and what the results were. She had discovered that no amount of alcohol, nicotine or self-seeking relationships are able to fill the place of God in our lives. She said it felt hard to reject the things that still felt fun, but she knew enough about the consequences to be able to make the right choice.

That day, I too confessed my sin and also got right with God again. What grieved me was that I felt I had sinned against Jo, in not standing for her, and against Meryl, because I had gone on sinning while she stood in intercession for Jo. As horribly ashamed as I was, I was so grateful that God was bigger than all that and had brought Jo back.

Now, sometimes I can still hardly believe that this is real. The way God has worked out this situation is amazing to me. It reinforces that God is the only way to real life and that He is faithful to those who stand and believe.