I have received your letter which has filled me with a deep sympathy for you. I would like to tell you many things to dissuade your doubts and grievance, but I am not good at writing. You have chosen a way of life, which is exceptionally difficult in our time. But if you follow this way to the end, all your hardships – though I wouldn’t say they will all be forgotten – will be overcompensated by million times, so that you will even regret that they were so easy. You might find it strange, but this is true. It is my deep conviction that even the great martyrs of the past wished they had suffered more to have their love for God to be adequate to Him.
Human love is expressed through doing things that would please the loved one, even at the cost of many sacrifices. The stronger one’s love is, the greater is one’s desire to prove it; and a sacrifice is the best proof of a selfless love. Because true love has no boundaries, the thirst for sacrifice as an expression of love is likewise boundless. Those who love God would be willing to suffer for His sake; the more love for God becomes, the greater is the desire to bear anything, so that He might not forsake us, and that we may be closer to Him. It is impossible not to love God, if we come close to Him, or to be more precise, if He comes close to us.
We may assume that the worm that never dies and the fire that does not quench in the future life are an expression of everlasting grief of the soul over the missed opportunity to prove our love for the Lord and to endure some hardships for His sake, as well as our regret for our failure to prove our love for Him not only by sufferings, but by our faith in Him despite all our doubts, our fears, spiritual loneliness, powerlessness and weaknesses.
We can and must prove our love for Him here, on earth. We should pledge: “I will believe in You, and will undertake every effort to fulfill all Your commandments; I will suffer for your sake; I will give up all things and everybody, including private life and family, if only You, Lord, should not give me up and not allow me to lose my faith and courage or let me grumble against You when too hard difficulties and sorrows befall me and my relatives. Please grant me to love you with my whole heart.” If you keep this pledge, it would be easy for you to pass your life’s journey.
If you hesitate and let your heart doubt, If you voluntarily break this or that commandment of God and darken your consciousness and weaken your forces; if you fail to call on God to help you; and especially if you become arrogant and put trust in your own forces, you may fall very low and make your life extremely difficult. But even if such is the case, you needn’t lose heart. Instead, you should humble yourself even more and place your hope in the Lord, in His mercy and help. Such would be a correct behavior and disposition of your soul. However, without the experience of inner ups and downs, it is difficult to develop such disposition of the soul and behavior. This disposition is characterized by man’s deep realization of his weakness and powerlessness to live according to God’s commandments and to love God as He loved and continues to love us.
This kind of soul’s disposition brings forth a feeling of frustration, heart’s weeping, and impossibility of covering our debt to God (ten thousand talents). And God will not spurn a broken and humbled heart, as a source of man’s love for him. One’s own desire and will alone are incapable of generating such love. It takes a life according to God’s commandments together with repentance, weeping over one’s falls and deep regret for permanent breaking of God’s will, instead of showing love for God and doing things pleasing to Him.
The weeping and heartfelt regretting bring forth fear of God, which is a fear of possible offending Him. This fear is followed by the feeling of God’s closeness to us, described by Prophet David in this way: ”I keep the Lord always before me.” Then, little by little, man grows confident in his belief that it is better to die than to offend the Lord, which results not only in uncomplaining endurance of sorrows and hardships, but also in being grateful for them, because of the consequential joy of being cleaned thanks to enduring the sorrows and because of feeling some satisfaction with the possibility of enduring for God’s sake and in this way to show our love for Him. “How can I repay the Lord for all the good done for me?”
Excuse me for the verbiage. Probably, it is not the best time to write about all this either. Your desolation has prompted me to it. Hopefully you might also find it useful and consoling a little.
My dear friend, never depart from God, I beg, no matter how low you might fall, what a serious sin you might commit or how seriously – God forbid! -you might offend God. Follow the example of the prodigal son: ask God to forgive you and repeatedly induce yourself to live in accordance with His commandments. Whoever is coming to Me, I will not cast out, said the Lord. He, who is going to the Lord by way of the fulfilment of His commandments, even if he happens to fall down on the way, gets up and continues going forward and ultimately becomes numbered among the warriors of Crist and is distinguished by Him, no matter how many wounds he might get in the spiritual war against his passions, against his fallen nature and demons. May the Lord enlighten you; may He fortify your faith and will, and may He protect you from evil. May the Lord bless you. Stay fit and healthy.
Keep this letter to refer to at the moments of melancholy.
P.S. There is one more thing I want you to know. Remember these words of our Lord Jesus Christ: ”Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.” (Jn.15:13) People lay their life for other people, for their homeland, for their fathers and mothers during war time, in an honest battle against the enemy. Nowadays there is much talking about war. If war breaks out, you will have to go to the front. There, an easier way will open for you to save the soul: not sparing yourself, with faith in God, honestly fulfill every order, even if you have to face a certain death. But yourself by your own free will, don’t risk unnecessary, because sometimes it may look like an attempt at suicide. Just but fulfill any order of the commander with courage, despite all difficulties and dangers, calling on God and saints to help you and inspiring courage in your fellow-soldiers by your own example. Death at war is the death “for your friends” leading to the Kingdom of God, and therefore it should not be feared. Don’t fear anything. The Lord is with you. There are many glorified saints of the military background in the Russian Church. You will learn about them from the history of the Church.
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