Dear Father Miletiy,
I received your letter. Sorry for the belated reply. Works, trips have taken away much time, and – what is more important – I find it difficult to write to you, because you are much more experienced than I am, you have seen more and know more. What good advice or comfort can offer I, a man who has led a life of vanity and self-will? But on your request, I am ready to try and share with you what I find astounding and comforting: a boundless Universe created by God – how great the power of God must be?! All and everything in the Universe as a whole and in all its parts (in a human body, for example) exist in a wonderful harmony – how immense the wisdom of God must be! If everything is harmonious in the world created by God, there must be harmony – all things must be in co-relation, in accord – in all the properties of God. God’s “heart,” that is love, must be as great as His power and wisdom.
This incomprehensible love is revealed to us in the incarnation of God’s Son, the Lord Jesus Crist, in His suffering through spitting, beating, and finally crucifixion. Inconceivable and boundlessly great the love of God is indeed. The entire angelic world was confused while witnessing the incarnation and crucifixion of the Creator of the world out of love for the fallen humankind.
Apostle John asserts by the Holy Spirit that God does not only have love, great as it is, but that God Is Love.
Love bears all things, according to Apostle Paul; it bears our sins and demerits, infirmities, intolerance, grumbles and so on.
Once the believers in Christ acknowledge their infirmities and sins and ask forgiveness for them, the love of God would cleanse and heal all the wounds of their sinfulness. The sins of the entire world get drowned in the sea of God’s love like a stone thrown into water.
So there can’t be any space for despondency, hopelessness and despair!
The Lord has brought His Divine Nature into one whole with human nature, washed off the sins of all believers of the world by His Blood, adopted all fallen people into His sonship , took them to heaven and made them partakers of the Divine life and ever-lasting joy.
Today’s earthly woes, diseases and the hardships of the old age make us rejoice in the future life. If the Lord suffered for us, how can we, at least in a very small measure, not take part in the suffering of Christ?! Our soul, the image of God in us, is willing to be a partaker of the sufferings of Christ; and only out of our faint-heartedness and iniquity we fear them, while, in fact, we might be strong enough to endure them.
The Lord, out of His love for us, compelling us to sufferings and diseases according to our strength, grants us patience to endure them so as to make us participants of His sufferings. Those who did not suffer for Christ here will be hit by qualms of conscience in the future century, because it was possible to show love for Christs by enduring woes, but they chose to avoid them.
We will feel qualms of conscience for having not reciprocated God’s love.
Let us wholeheartedly thank God for everything He chooses to send upon us. It is not in wrath, nor for our punishment the Lord sends grief and diseases upon us, but because He loves us, although not all people realize this. But, as they say, be grateful for everything. It is important to fully entrust oneself to the good will of God, Who loves and saves us, Who leads us though minor difficulties of the earthly life towards blissful eternity and glory of His children.
Let it be so for all of us. Amen.
Forgive me, dear Father, for daring to write to you. May the Lord kindle in your heart deep gratitude to Him, as well as the feelings of awe and absolute faithfulness to His holy will together with the willingness to endure everything out of love for Him.
* * *