"...those who pass through the valley of the Weeping make it a spring, and the early rain gives a blessing!" (Ps. 83: 7).
The Bible mentions Aven-Ezer - the place where the Israelites suffered a tragic defeat against the Philistines. Almost four thousand Jews died. Everyone was confused: what will happen now? Why did God allow this? Did He leave us and forget us?
Years passed. The prophet Samuel called the Jews to reject idols and repent of their sins. The people obeyed the prophet - and after that victory came. "And the Israelites came out from Massifah, and pursued the Philistines, and struck them down to the place near Behhor. And Samuel took one stone and placed it between Massifa and Sen, and called it Aven-Ezer, saying: the Lord helped us to this place" (1 Kings 7:11-12).
Why did Samuel give the place where the great victory was won such a sad name - "Aven Ezer", which reminds of the former defeat of the Israelites? To show the God of hope, Who can turn our defeats into victory. Christ on the cross looked defeated: "And we thought...", the disciples said in despair after His death. But it was on this shameful cross that salvation and victory over death took place: "God's word about the cross to those who are perishing is foolishness, but for us who are being saved, it is the power of God!" (1 Corinthians 1:18).
Looking back, we often notice that success was preceded by defeat. As in the proverb: "There would be no happiness - but misfortune helped."
My older brother Sashko (Saino in Tajik) was an ardent opponent of Christ, and then became a zealous Christian. Almost like Saul, who brutally persecuted the church, after meeting with the Savior became an ardent evangelist - the apostle Paul.
A serious illness led my brother to Jesus. He was already dying, but after he repented and gave his heart to Christ, God extended his life for another seven years. Sashko opened the door of his house for meetings. And just as before he stubbornly kicked me out for believing in Christ, so now he hotly drove me to his house for worship - especially my nephews, who often forgot about everything while playing football.
Sashko experienced rebirth. His encounter with Christ was obvious to all.
Mulla, who knows our family well, said to his brother:
- How could you betray our faith? Your sister is a Christian. But what to take from it? She is a woman. But you?..
To which Sashko replied:
- There, in the corner, ax, you can chop off my head, but I firmly believe that Jesus Christ is the Lord.
The Mullah left with a wave of frustration. Sasha was no longer bothered, attributing his new condition to an illness that drove him crazy. And the nephews, whom he sometimes prevented from playing football, became believers. Some of them are missionaries. They remember their uncle with gratitude. Before his conversion, Sashko was a lover of entertainment venues and an avid card player, but after his repentance he was unrecognizable.
Once the head of the district executive committee, Sashka's friend, told me:
- I can't believe that this is the same Sashko. It was as if he had been replaced. This is a completely different person. He said that the Bible helped him change. Give me this Book, maybe it will help me. I feel that I am rolling into some kind of abyss.
Sashka's house became a great blessing for our family, neighbors and numerous relatives. And, taking into account the surrounding context (mainly Tajiks and Azerbaijanis lived around), he was a real miracle.
Aven-Ezer is a path "through thorns to the stars", through darkness to light, through suffering to joy.
"It is good for me (Lord), that You have humbled me, that I may learn Your commandments" (Ps. 118:71) - said King David. There was a lot of sadness in the life of this king: his son Absalom sought his death, Melhola's wife did not always understand him, his best adviser Ahithophel defected to the enemy's camp, and yesterday's friends vilely betrayed him. "Even the man at peace with me, in whom I trusted, who ate my bread, lifted up his heel against me" (Ps. 40:10). These defeats taught David to hold on to the Lord as the only Helper who will never leave. Trials became his best teachers. "Until I was afflicted, I went astray, but now I keep Your word" (Psalm 118:67).
Having met Christ, Sasha loved the Lord so much that no threats could separate him from Him. The disease only contributed to this.
"For everyone who is born of God overcomes the world. And this is the victory that has overcome the world, our faith" (1 John 5:4).
Svetlana was 20 years old. In the Scientific Research Institute of Ambulance named after M.V. Sklifosovsky, she was dying of leukemia. The beauty with the lush blonde braid was tossing and turning on the bed in agony, stretching herself into a string.
Three hours before the girl's death, I came to her at the request of her mother. The patient was conscious. The doctors sometimes looked into the ward to make sure she hadn't left yet. We sat with Svitlana's mother at her feet and prayed.
I asked the girl if she would like to turn to Christ. She nodded her head in agreement and repeated the words of the prayer after me, inviting Jesus into her heart. The agony released her, she immediately fell silent. Then suddenly she said: "Behold, Christ has come for me." Within an hour, Svitlana quietly passed away. At the same moment, I felt something supernatural in the ward: it was blowing with such a force of life that it had no connection with the lifeless body lying on the bed.
Why did this young soul need such suffering? Only God knows. "Until you yourself have learned how to raise the sun into the sky every morning, until you know where to direct lightning or how to create a hippopotamus, do not judge how God rules the world - keep quiet and listen" (Philip Yancey).
One day everything will be revealed and the secret will become clear. Svitlana had a meeting with God.
This is the most important thing. Man comes to our world only for this. Even if the meeting took place just an hour before death, this is a great blessing and mercy of the Lord.
Death, as an evil and a curse, became for Svitlana "Aven-Ezer" - a blessing and a door to eternal life, because, dying with Christ, we are resurrected with Him.
"Writer Elie Weisel was a prisoner of a Nazi concentration camp. He left a testimony about a Jewish child who was dying of hunger. The kid stole a piece of bread and was hanged for it. He did not cry or resist. Life was given to him without explanation and just as, without explanation, cruelly taken away. Where was God? God was on the gallows, quietly with the child and the sorrow. What else can be said about the meaning of this hour?” (R. Wurmbrand, "From the mouth of a child").
Non-believers are often indignant: "If there is a God, why are there so many disasters, wars and diseases?" Diseases and calamities are the result of the fall of man. Everyone suffers: our world is like a big cauldron in which we all boil. The believer receives support and joy in suffering.
Righteous Job, having lost property, children, and health, asked God: "Where are You?" God was silent. The time has come and Job, having received an answer, exclaimed: "I have only heard about You with the hearing of my ear, but now my eye sees You..." God answers, but we do not always hear Him, because either we are not asking for good, or we do not understand what we are asking.
Once Charlie Chaplin took part in the competition of his doubles and lost, because no one expected his appearance. The actor was not recognized because they did not believe in such a possibility. And it happened. It is human nature to filter what we see and hear through "blinders" that prevent us from trusting God like a child. If in our trials we do not doubt God's love, then the Aven Ezer of defeat can become the Aven Ezer of victory.
"Always rejoice! Pray without ceasing! Give thanks for everything, for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus" (1 Thessalonians 5:16-18).
Viktor Frankl in his book "A Man in Search of the Meaning of Life" writes: "It is where we are helpless and hopeless, unable to change the situation, that is where we are called, we feel the need to change ourselves. And no one described it more precisely than Yehuda Bacon, who went to Auschwitz as a child, and after his release suffered from obsessions: "I saw a funeral with a magnificent coffin and music - and I began to laugh: is it not madness - to arrange such a thing only for the sake of the only deceased? If I went to a concert or the theater, I had to calculate how much time it would take to gas all the people who had gathered there, and how many clothes, how many gold teeth, how many bags of hair would come out in the process." And then Yehuda Bacon asks himself what is the meaning of the years he spent in Auschwitz: "As a teenager, I thought that I would tell the world what I saw in Auschwitz, hoping that the world would one day become different. However, the world did not change, and the world did not want to hear about Auschwitz. It was only much later that I truly understood the meaning of suffering. Suffering makes sense if you yourself become different."
Such a change is similar to a caterpillar, which later turns into a pupa, and then a beautiful butterfly flies out of the pupa. And although the process of transformation is difficult, like "a smelter for gold and a refiner for wine", but the result is blessed. After suffering and martyrdom, Christ became another - the Risen Savior.
We are called to share this "table". If we suffer with Him, we will be glorified with Him. Understanding these spiritual laws makes us courageous in overcoming life's trials. "You will keep the thought that rests on You in complete peace, because it puts its hope in You" (Isaiah 26:3). Looking at Christ, we will follow in His footsteps, and He will turn our defeat into victory.
"He who sows with tears, sows with singing:
everything goes and cries, he who carries a bag of seeds for sowing, and he who carries his sheaves will return with a song!" (Psalm 125:5-6).
As we sing in the Christian hymn in Russian:
Let's climb Calvary, my brother! There, the Messiah sent by God is crucified, Oh the holy truth He preached, He healed the sick, and now He is executed. Let's fall before Him!
Involved in earthly passions, I know that from darkness to light shahnet once a black angel and will cry that there is no salvation. But, simple-minded and timid, wonderful, like good news the following angel is white will whisper that there is salvation.
(B. Okudzhava)
During the 39 years of his crazy life, Serhii managed to be born three times. Well, why? To make the world happy. And be happy. There is nothing special about the first birth: this is how all people are born.
The child's parents worked hard both day and night at metallurgical plants, of which there were as many as sixteen in Zaporizhzhia. The mother, being Orthodox, instructed the boy as best she could. She taught her son to baptize the pillow before going to sleep. I also bought him a children's Bible. But when to read it? Flipping through the pages, the kid looked only at the pictures. He grew up like everyone else. Engaged in sports and even managed to achieve some results.
And it would have been nothing, but the boy began to be very attracted to the street. How do such passions end? Contacted the Spaniard. He went through a "young fighter" course with them, quickly learning how to lay down "by the collar", smoke, fight and curse. There would be a swamp, and there would be devils. Serhii did not notice how he got used to drugs. At first they were given for free. Many friends appeared. When a person is young, has a lot of strength and energy - so much so that I don't want to take it - it seems that the whole world is at your feet, and it will always be like that.
By the ninth grade, the boy was already carrying concretely. "You can't be famous for good deeds," sang old Shapoklyak from the cartoon about Gena the crocodile. Seryoga learned this and his soul rushed to dance. He even managed to steal from his native technical school, from which he was expelled four times for failure and discipline violations. Mom's tears did their job, and the sick son was returned to the desk every time.
His parents, of course, tried to teach him, but what is parental guidance for a teenager? A violin with out-of-tune strings. Boredom and notes... But with friends it's a completely different matter - adrenaline! Once they "taught" him so well that they knocked out his jaw. She was wedged and her mouth was crooked so that a large light bulb could easily be inserted and removed from her mouth. Why he did it, he himself did not know, it just worked out great. For a normal jaw, such hocus-pocus should have ended in the surgical chair.
There was still a benefit from misfortune: Serhii thought about life-being. It is not for nothing that they say: "Life to be lived is not a field to be crossed." Several times he tried to abandon his friends and tie himself up with poison. He continued to baptize the pillow, each time hoping that a new life would begin in the morning. Eh, if this other "life" had fallen on him, he would have tied it with a cursed "needle". And how happy I would be! But morning came, and everything returned to normal. "A dog returns to its vomit, and a washed pig goes to wallow in a puddle..." (2 Peter 2:2). Bitter truth.
Serhiy experienced his second birth when he turned thirty. The whistling with the drug was already such that "mom, don't be sad"! By nature, he let good health go downhill. Somehow, with an "overdose" he ended up in the "hospital". In a few days I fainted. The heart stopped. While they were running for medical personnel, the neighbor from the ward took up the case. He revived Serhiy, pressing with great force on his ribs. Serhiy recalled:
- I know for sure that I was already... in another world and thought I had died, but miraculously I remained alive. For what?
He admitted to his mother that he was unable to get out of the circle of hell on his own. The poor mother, clutching her head with one hand and wailing: "Oh you, my poor little head!", and with the other - the tall child, took him to the drug dispensary. They tried to heal there, but the result was short-lived. Sins are like stale walnuts: you can split the shell, but it is difficult to get the grain.
Then the mother took the prodigal son to numerous grandmothers, who "treated" with icons, conspiracies and all kinds of "prayers". She gave all her strength to save her child and went through "fire, water, copper pipes, Crimea and Rome" with him (Rome is a market in Crimea, where people were once traded, it became a symbol of slavery and hard labor). Having tried all possible "procedures", Serhii came to a sad conclusion: there are no former drug addicts.
Just then the bride turned around. She just got out of prison. Got married. Serhiy was happy, thought that maybe the family would be saved. But like leads to like, and now he's already stung with her. The wife became pregnant and gave up drugs for the sake of the future child's health. And the husband, like a capricious child, almost crying, persuaded her every day: "Let's just inject ourselves today, and tomorrow we will start a new life together." But the wife resolutely said her "no" - as she cut off. Motherhood prevailed. She was even able to convince her husband to tie the knot for a while. They had a healthy daughter. It seemed that happiness had fallen, live and be happy. But... there are no former drug addicts, and already in eight months, the old record started playing: the family began to "spread with a twist and a screw". Even describing it is tiring, not the same as living in it...
A bad beginning does not lead to a good end. Toxic encephalopathy happened to Serhiy: he had difficulty moving, lost his speech, folded his arms and bounced like a ball from side to side. People began to shun him, he was kicked out of another job, and to top it all off, his wife also left. One - and the darkness all around.
- All this abomination has brought me, a fool, to the point of disability. A grimace appeared on my face - I became like a madman. Is it really possible to do this yourself and with your own hands? - Serhiy shared sincerely.
He went wandering: he lived sometimes under fences, sometimes in porches. He could not eat for several days, but for a dose he got money from the ground. He was put in prison for two years. After being released, he remained free for a short time - and again for the old. Sat down again. Now for three. As in the famous movie "Gentlemen of Fortune": "Steal, drink - to prison! Steal, drink - to prison! Romance!"
In the colony, tuberculosis was added to everything else. Life was extremely tiring. Everything is boring. In the first days after his release, he decided: it would be enough to pull the strap. Why bother? It's time to settle accounts with life.
He thoroughly prepared everything for this. When that hour came, the prepared pills disappeared, as if they had evaporated, although no one was around. I looked for them, but I didn't find them. I shuddered: what is this? Sign?
Again, the mother came to the rescue to lead her lost sheep somewhere. How good it is that there are our mothers in the world! Thank You, Lord, for them!
And the images faded, And the candles were filled They were burning... Fine dew It fell out less and less, And only mother's tears, A simple, honest tear She protected me.
(T. Travnyk)
This time, the mother took her son to a Christian rehabilitation center. The most important event in Serhiy's life took place there - his third birth. He fell to his knees and cried out to God:
- Help me, Lord! I'm missing!
God saw and heard Serhii. He gave him a new birth, about which they say: "He who is born once will die twice, and he who is born twice will die once." Twice means physical and spiritual death, and then to where "the worm does not die and the fire does not go out." And one day - the body to the earth, and the soul - to God, to be transformed there. "Whoever listens to my words and believes in the One who sent me has eternal life and will not come to judgment, but he has passed from death to life," said Christ.
A drug addict with many years of experience finally got freedom from a terrible addiction. It has been eight years since Seryoga is a different person. This figure inspires confidence. He reconciled with his family and friends. He began to serve in the church and even enrolled in Bible courses. "Therefore, when someone is in Christ, he is a new creation, the old has passed away, and the new has become!" (2 Corinthians 5:17).
"I'm still surprised," says Serhii, "that when I'm in houses where wallets and expensive phones are lying in plain sight, I cast my fierce gaze at them, but it's not for nothing. And I tied the knot with drugs! Victory! Thank you, Lord!".
Listening to this story, perhaps someone will not really believe in Seryogin's "happy end", because most drug addicts break down in a month or two, at most in a few years. With Serhii, one would like to hope, in a different way. He really underwent a metamorphosis. And thank God that there are many others like him who met Christ and experienced a wonderful release from addiction.
Remember the happiness at the beginning of my story?
Serhiy, nevertheless, found him. You won't believe where exactly. Near. In the village of Veselyanka. The name exactly corresponds to the new state of our hero. In the tuberculosis dispensary of this Veselyanka, he began to help people. He also brought his friend Sanya there, who also believed and got hooked on drugs. Now these two, until recently unruly rioters, like gentle lambs, began to care for the sick, fulfilling their last wishes and helping in the sanitary department. They read the Gospel to them and pray with them.
There are many sick people there. This is where the house is crying. Grief and tears - rivers and seas. Many live out their last days there. Once a young man of twenty-five was dying. He was already unconscious. The nurse advised Sergey: "Don't go to him, boys, it's in vain, he's already a "vegetable". Sasha stood in the heads of the dying man and read the Gospel story about the resurrection of Lazarus. It's short. Then he turned to the lifeless man: "Brother, I know you hear me now. Repeat the words of the prayer behind me in your mind." And he slowly said: "Forgive me, Christ. I believe that You are God and Savior, died for me and rose again, and give me eternal life. Thank you, Lord. I want to meet you. Receive me into Your home. Amen.” The boy continued to lie breathless, without signs of life, and tears flowed from his eyes... Shortly after the prayer, he died.
This greatly affected Serhiy and Sashko, and now they go to the tube dispensary almost every day. Isn't it strange that the former recidivist Seryoga - a finished drug addict with a slurred speech and a distorted face - today leads several Bible study groups in a tube dispensary and organizes Bible classes with sick children?! The residents of the same village (and Vesel residents too) who know these guys cannot believe that they are the same Seryoga and Sanyok.
"And I will give you a new heart, and I will put a new spirit within you, and I will cast the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you a heart of flesh" (Ezek. 36:26). This is the only true birth for which a person comes into this great world.
Well, let's say the last snow has fallen, There is even no need to get ink. Here is a man walking down the street - Not happy with anything, not nice to anyone. That spring is like that, that white light He has a draft all over his insides. Here is a man walking down the street, And the subway train is rushing under it, And lanterns are swinging above him, And a sprout looks out of the ground behind him. The man is walking, he has inside Emptiness, and God lives in it.
(Elena Kasyan)
"...and those who put their hope in the Lord will regain their strength, they will raise their wings like those eagles, they will run and not get tired, they will walk and not get tired!" (Isaiah 40:31).
Romania
The times of Ceausescu. Poverty and hunger. The ungodly communist government is a veritable circle of hell that brutally persecuted Christians. But the persecutions did not break the people of God, and the poisonous tentacles of the God-fighters, no matter how hard they tried, could not destroy them. The preaching of the Gospel continued despite bans and imprisonment. In the conditions of a strict conspiracy, many people found their way to Christ.
"Christ loved the Church and gave Himself for her." And she is the Bride of Christ, chased and almost bloodless, in her suffering she shone like the sun! "You are beautiful, you are my friend, like that Tirzah, you are beautiful like Jerusalem, you are formidable, like armies with flags!" (Song of Songs 6:4).
Famous Romanian pastor Richard Wurmbrand spent 14 years in prison, most of it in solitary confinement ten meters underground. During this time he did not see sunlight. He was constantly tortured. The pastor regarded his situation as a real hell, until one day he saw a rusty water can in his cell. "No," he thought, "this is not hell yet." In hell, no one will be able to drink water and quench their thirst."
There is a way out of even the most hopeless situation. Once, the prophet Ilya asked for his death, thinking that he was left alone, and all the prophets were killed. But God told him that seven thousand more God's messengers were saved. The darkest hour of the night is before dawn. "When I thought I was at the very bottom - there was a knock from below" (S. Jerzy Lets).
Wurmbrand was bought by a group of Norwegian Christians. While in exile in the United States, he started the Voice of Martyrs mission, which called for support for persecuted Christians. "Remember the prisoners as if you were bound to them, those who suffer, as you yourselves are in the body" (Hebrews 13:3).
This mission informed the world about the crimes and atrocities committed against Christians by the dictators Ceausescu, Brezhnev, Mao Zedong...
Richard Wurmbrand wrote the book Tortured for Christ, which told the West about the true situation of believers in communist countries. He said: “I do not believe that the horrors of Communism can be exaggerated… Let us fight Communism with passion, but at the same time with love for the Communists. Sometimes it is difficult to love the worst specimens among them, but when I remember the labor pains of their mothers, their efforts devoted to the education of their children, the mental anguish of the tormentors themselves, and especially the fact that eternal suffering awaits them in hell if they do not repent, then I can love them.
Pastor Ion
Romanian pastor Ion Ordeanu's parents died when he was still a child. In adolescence, the boy began to think about the meaning of life. And once, having entered the Baptist church in Bucharest, he stayed in it for a long time. Received baptism. Became a youth leader. In this church, he met a wonderful girl, Ioanna, also an orphan, whose eight brothers and sisters grew up without parents. The time was like this: first the war, then came the communist government with prisons and hunger, and death mowed down everyone indiscriminately.
These two destitute souls - Ion and John, who experienced a lot of grief and tears during their short life, followed the truth to the Heavenly Father and were not ashamed. In the church, they found care, friends, but most importantly - each other... They got married. They gave birth to six children, in whom they tried to instill love for God. Ion Ordeana was elected pastor. He served on this "battlefield" for more than fifty years.
Iona's youngest daughter, Mia, visited hospitals from a young age, helped care for the elderly, and read the Gospel to them. This caused irritation among the atheists, and they incited schoolchildren to make fun of her. In terms of mischievousness, the teachers were not much inferior to the children. This is the ideology of communism: applaud the darkness and hate the light. The girl experienced from childhood what it means to suffer for Christ. Atheism spared no one: neither old nor young.
Pastor Ion was repeatedly taken to the police for questioning for preaching the Gospel. After many hours they released him. And Mia, who had grown up, was interrogated at another place at the same time. Father and daughter did not share with each other, and at home at dinner they behaved as if they had returned not from the police station, where they were threatened and humiliated, but from work. They took care of each other. Their house was constantly monitored. Only forty years later, when communism collapsed, my father shared the details of those events.
God rewarded Pastor Ion: all his children became believers. For a minister-father, this is the greatest reward. "I have no greater joy than this, to hear that my children live in the truth" (3 John 1:4). He lived a long life - 95 years. Sunday was the holiest day for the pastor. In recent years, due to his illness, he no longer went outside, but every Sunday he sat down on a chair, opened the Bible and preached an insightful sermon.
Missionary family
About how Mia grew up. At the age of 18, she met her future husband Kostel. He fell in love with her at first sight, but was too shy to admit it. To be near his beloved, Kostel went to homes for the elderly, to hospitals, changed clothes and fed the sick, cleaned the homes of the elderly from the church. He didn't like it at all, but what you won't do for love!
Forgive and bless everyone, Here is your life, here is your God over it. There is nothing more painful than love There is nothing more beautiful and stronger.
(E. Kasyan)
Suddenly, Kostel's entire family was expelled from the country as Armenian refugees. His grandmother was Armenian. Only Jews, Germans and Armenians were allowed to emigrate then. Such an attempt could have cost the Romanians their lives. A few years later, Kostel, with great difficulty, managed to summon Mia to his home in America. They were 27 years old. They got married and became the Oglich family. Many prayed to return to Romania for spiritual work. The revolution of 1989, when an anti-communist uprising took place in the country, helped. They came to their homeland. Once at the cemetery, Mia saw a woman tearing her hair on her head in frustration and shouting to the sky: "What kind of God are you if you took my son away?" This made a strong impression on Mia. People are lonely and unhappy. They need God. Oglich decided to become missionaries and bring God's hope to people.
Who is a missionary? This is the apostle. From the Greek language, "apostle" means "sent, messenger". He brings the Good News to people with all the fullness of the Lord's power. Christ sent His disciples on His behalf to preach the Gospel. This service continues today - for more than two thousand years.
Miya and Kostel became such messengers. They are already in their 70s, but despite the ailments that come with old age, they continue to work in God's vineyard. One of their students called them Duracell batteries, famously advertised as never getting tired. But, unfortunately, this is not the case. They get tired. But also how. But believers have a power supply or outlet that can always be plugged in for recharging: "But you will receive power as the Holy Spirit comes upon you, and you will be My witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth" (Acts 1:8).
The missionary family comes home only a few times a year - at Christmas and Easter - to see their children and grandchildren. Once at a conference, women asked Mia if she sometimes had a desire to take a break from her husband and go somewhere alone for a week to relax? She was very surprised: how can your second half get bored?
Nothing brings people together like a high goal, a common vision and a common cause. The service to Christ has refined their souls so that they follow one another like a thread follows a needle. It is absolutely impossible to imagine Kostel and Mia separately. Even for a short time. This is what true love looks like. This is both great happiness and great work. A missionary needs a lot of courage and patience in service.
Spiritual fruits do not ripen as quickly as we would like, sometimes we have to wait for them for many years.
There is such an instructive parable, how a woman entered a store and, seeing God behind the counter, asked in surprise:
- Lord, is it you?