It’s a
great thing to rely on God and to pray; and here comes somebody saying, “I want
to start a family, but I don’t know how to do it, or where to find the right
person,” and so on.
Several
of you have written to me about such problems, problems with your children,
with yourselves—that the years are passing and you’re still not married, and so
on. Indeed, the years and time are passing, but do we know what it means that
time passes? God knows time; time is how God wants it to be; time is good!
“But,”
you say, “I’m already thirty-five!”
Well,
perhaps God wants you to start a family at thirty-eight?
“But I’m
already forty!”
Well,
perhaps God wants you to start a family later, or, perhaps, He has a different
plan for you, which is nevertheless magnificent. I don’t know what it is to be
able to reveal it to you.
Can I
tell you something simple? Pray to God for Him to reveal it to you. Pray for
Him to enlighten you!
Once one
such person came to me and said, “I want to start a family. What should I do?
Help!”
“How can
I help with this; what do you have in mind?”
“For you
to tell me what to do…”
 |
| Archimandrite Andrei (Konanos) |
No,
please, don’t do anything—first just calm down. You have stress, and when you
have stress, you can’t start a healthy family, because when you are under
stress, panic and uncertainty will seize you, and even if you find the right
person, this stress and fear will make you question yourself: “Will she want
me? Will a relationship develop between us? Won’t we break up? Won’t she toss
me away, like last time? Won’t she reject me? What if she suddenly doesn’t like
me?”
It’s
stress, my child. You cannot create a healthy family if you’re going to start
with such stress. What are we talking about for so long? Trust in God! Love
God! Believe in God!
“I love
Him,” he says, “but…”
Okay, but
if you loved Him, would you really be in such panic? You love God and you’re
panicking? Look, if I take your hand and squeeze it, you’ll feel warmth and
say, “Ah, I feel confidence and calmness—someone is holding my hand!” It means
people touch you, and you calm down, but God touches you, and where is your
peace? Where? Therefore, come on, first let’s calm down.
Do you
know why you need to relax? To clearly see that there’s no more stress inside
of you, for panic to disappear, for peace to come, because for these
questions—of meeting someone and starting a family—the will of God is clearly
reflected in calm and peaceful souls. Your soul should be quiet and calm so the
will of God can reverberate in it. If panic and confusion seize you, the will
of God cannot be reflected. You make some frantic movement, you distort your
image and create a false view of yourself in the eyes of the person with whom
you’re going to get acquainted, because some anxiety and uncertainty comes from
you.
Above
all, leave everything up to God. Someone said one remarkable thing: “Do you
know when these questions will be resolved? When you stop dwelling on them.” I
really like that. When you stop having stress from something, then it will all
be settled; but if you’re stressed, it can’t be settled. Stress doesn’t help,
but conversely, it creates a very unpleasant and difficult climate for settling
our problems. Relax and forget your problem! Live your life!
“But,” he
says, “life has no meaning for me!”
What are
you talking about? Your life has no meaning? That is, your life has no meaning
because you don’t have a family? Are these actually serious words? Here’s the
first lesson you should grasp first, before creating a family—life is beautiful
not because of a family, but because Christ exists. Our beloved Christ is so
rich in gifts that He gives us a family; but even if you haven’t started a
family, life in Him is wonderful.
We wound
God, we offend God, and we commit sin, saying, “If I don’t ever have a family,
my life will be a failure and will lose all meaning!” This is incorrect.
First,
life is beautiful because the Lord exists, our Christ exists. Once someone went
to Elder Paisios and said, “Father, I’m in trouble; things are bad for me!
“Why, my
child?”
“I’m
forty, and I’m not yet married!”
“Okay,
well don’t worry!” Elder Paisios said. “I’m already seventy and I’m also not
yet married!”
He
laughed as he said that. That is, don’t look at it that way. The question isn’t
in age, and not that your turn has come and something should happen now, but
that you try to develop your inner world.
I heard
about this from Metropolitan Athanasios of Limassol in one of his talks; I
don’t know if he heard it himself, but he did personally know Elder Paisios.
It’s a
good thing to be reconciled with God, because your question will thus be
settled.
“But tell
me something practical to do! To go, to see, to do!”
Look, I
won’t forbid you; I didn’t tell you to lock yourself up alone at home and wait
for everything to resolve itself, or for the gift of family to fall from
Heaven, and for the love of your life to come down from Heaven. It can happen.
If you have such holiness and boldness, then it will be. Fr. Epiphanios
(Theodoropoulos) says, “If we had enough living faith in Christ, real living
faith and love, then we would say, ‘Lord, I’m going to confess and then
commune, and pray, and I’ll walk out of my house and the first person I meet
will be the one I will start a family with.’”
Can I
tell you something? Don’t do this; don’t do it, because you might get
disappointed and disappoint others. I mean for you not to do it, but if some
holy person does it, he will have success. Do you know why? If Christ saw that
your heart was surrendered to Him, that you trusted Him completely, do you know
what He would say? “This, My creation lives for Me, lives by Me, and awaits
everything from Me. He completely believes in Me, and now he is going to meet
the love of his life. I will not disappoint him, because if I disappoint him, his
faith will be shaken, and he will say, ‘Where is my God? So what, Lord, you
don’t exist?’”
This is
my obedience to Christ. St. John Climacus calls this obedience “sleep walking.”
In other words—“Lord, I entrust myself to Thee, and I walk the path of this
life with closed eyes; I sleep and I go. I walk, that is, I act, I am active,
but at the same time I am sleeping—that is, I quiet down, I sleep peacefully, I
walk, and I sleep.”
It’s very
interesting; it means that I entrust myself to God. If you will do this and
feel it as inner trust, then there is no chance that the Lord will not
immediately solve your problem.
God
therefore delays, that through danger, searching, mistakes, setbacks, torments,
and rejection which we endure or bring, He wants to teach us other lessons,
before we get married—lessons of life, humility, patience, and faith.
Otherwise, how will you endure life? You will become a useless father, a glib
mother, if you act so quickly. You are stressed, you will carry yourself in
this stress, and why would you undertake to start a family—to lead others to
stress?
There are
children who tell their parents when they are fighting: “So what, you got
acquainted in the dark? You got married in the dark?”
As some
of them say, “Did they gave you a diploma in the dark, or what?”
Well,
this is wrong, but why do children say it? Why? Because they understand that
something here doesn’t add up, something is wrong, and they see it—they see
such nervousness, grumbling, fights, disagreements, anger, whims, and
capriciousness. Is that marriage? What kind of relationship is that? What were
they thinking about when they met?
***
I like
how one of my friends put it: “Father, I’m not going to pretend to be a good
person. As soon as I meet a girl, on the second or third date I’m going to tell
her about my weaknesses; I will say that I am egotistical, that I’m nervous,
that I can explode with anger.”
“Come on,
my child, calm down!” I said to him.
“No, I
want to say that I’m not going to deceive someone else. I want to tell her the
truth, that I will work on myself and try to correct myself, but to make myself
into someone I’m not, I will not do.”
Well, as a
spirit, as an ethos, as a way of thinking, I like it: “Of course, it might look
like unreliability on my part, but I at least want to show her that I am not
acting with her. I will not try to convince her of something that’s not true. I
want to tell her how I really am. I’m not wearing any mask of hypocrisy, to
make myself out to be some big shot, to hide something; no, I am a simple,
real, open person; I trust in God and godly people. Sure, it’s a risk, but I
say it anyways. I will tell her everything, and when I reveal to her my
mistakes and infirmities, then I will be humbled, and she will be touched by
this and love me even more, because I’m not making myself out to be anything,
but telling her who I really am.”
In this
way we lay a good, humble, genuine, down to earth beginning in our life, and
Christ serves as our prototype. Although, it would be good if when someone is
planning to start a family he had some kind of restraint, because some people,
in the name of sincerity, start to tell everything about their lives, and the
other person is stung by it, disappointed, and horrified. You should clarify
this with your spiritual father.
There are
a few things we hide, not out of cunning or malice, but out delicateness and
discretion. Do you understand? It could hurt the other person. You don’t need
to always pick at the mistakes that happened in the past and which you have
already confessed.
“What
should I do then?” this person asked me.
I told
him the same thing at first:
“Pray! It
would be good if you prayed. Above all, she is coming—do you understand?”
“Who’s
coming?”
“Your
love! Do you hear her footsteps? Listen! Do you hear the footsteps?”
“What are
you talking about, father? What footsteps?”
“I’m
telling you! If you’re over twenty, then the person you want to start a family
with, whom God has prepared for you to meet in some moment—listen to what I’m
saying!—that person already exists, and is out there somewhere.”
You ask,
“Why are you telling me this?”
I’m
saying it so you would feel awe, affection, and joy. I pray to God for your
paths to cross, for you to meet. You and her, existing somewhere out there. And
you should also say in your prayers: “Lord, we, probably, are walking parallel
paths—perhaps we are near one another. The person whom Thou, in Thy wisdom,
goodness, and loving plan have prepared for me, exists somewhere. Lord, this
girl whom Thou hast prepared for me and who exists somewhere, protect her!
Preserve her, and prepare her for me, for our meeting, and grant her the gift
of Thy Holy Spirit; give her Thy blessing and love, protect her from all
temptations, trials, and physical and spiritual danger.”
Now do
you know what to do? Pray for her—familiar and unknown X, whom, however, the
Lord knows. On the other hand, there is a known X—it is our Christ… It is a
question of days, months, years, when the Lord will place this person in your
path.
Just
think: You’re talking to Christ, and in that moment Christ already knows the
name of the girl who you will marry! He knows her name, and on the day of the
wedding everyone will festively hear it: “The servant of God Nicholas is
crowned to the handmaiden of God Elena!”
God
already know this Elena, who we will hear about then. And you say, “O, my Lord,
who is she? I don’t know how this meeting will happen; I don’t know what to
do—after all, it’s not human—it’s a mystery.” As it says in the Wedding
service, God accomplishes this combination and union between a husband and
wife, this meeting. How can two strangers, not knowing one another, suddenly
connect, get to know one another and become so attached, become so close to one
another, love one another so strongly, and share everything with one another?
I have no
family and never will, however I experience awe before it, just as you
experience awe when a person becomes a monk and dedicates himself to God. That
is, it’s all marriage (monasticism and marriage).
And
something else. Someone said to me, “When are we going to hear, ‘Rejoice, O
Isaiah?’” That is, when I am I getting married? Well, how could you not hear
it? And he heard it—they sing it at the ordination of a deacon and a priest.
You will hear it only once, when you get married, but a priest hears it twice:
“Rejoice, O Isaiah, the Virgin is with child, and shall bear a son Emmanuel,
both God and Man, and Orient is His Name, whom magnifying we call the Virgin
blessed.”
Look with
awe upon this event, which is coming. If you look at marriage this way, while
it has yet to happen—but for God it has happened—then God, of course, will help
you. This is what I had in mind.
Well, my
brother and all who are anxious for their children over these questions, then
you will act otherwise, if you will look upon it as a sacrament. Sacraments are
connected with God, and not with your intellect, abilities, pedagogical skills,
art, and technique, gimmicks, or your books where you read how to work on
yourself, how to act, how to communicate with people—none of this, but it’s a
mystery, and it is experienced in the Church, near God.
Unfortunately,
the majority of young people today experience these wonderful things outside of
God. It’s our drama, the drama of modern man: Families are destroyed, unable
even to create something together.
So what
are we to do then? If a family isn’t functioning as it should, then nothing
good will come out of it—a sick family, with problematic and run-down children
who react to everything, resisting, breaking, smashing, rebelling, and liking
nothing in this life, and setting cars on fire.
Someone
said to me, “And they do well!” I answered internally: “Well, yes, of course
they do well!” What do I mean? And what else could they do? What else, when
parents, the relations between them, their feelings, love, child, and pregnancy
were not sealed by God’s grace, and everything happened with them like animals
in nature? The only difference is that cute animals are blessed by God, because
they follow their instincts, as God created them. And you? You, man? You will do
what you want, whatever comes to mind, what you like? No, you will not. The
water you drink out of the faucet is not blessed, but you give it to a priest,
he blesses it, and it becomes Holy Water. It is Holy Water—water, blessed by
the hand of the priest, the hand of the unworthy priest, and through his hand
the Lord invisibly stretches forth His hand and blesses the water.
Only in
the Church do bread and wine become the Body and Blood of Christ, while at home
they are just bread and wine—bread which molds, and you throw it to the pigeons
or bury it in the garden. But in the Church, bread and wine are experienced as
a Sacrament; they are transformed into the Body and Blood of Christ. Therefore,
any biological or psychological function of man needs precisely that—to be
sealed by Christ, to be planted in the Church, where it will be consecrated and
become blessed.
Of
course, here we are speaking about your personal relationships, about the most
sacred and most important events of your life, that is, about your profession,
education, and marriage. These are very important questions in life, therefore
you answer them in adulthood; but you want to answer these very important
questions yourself and say, “I will think it all over myself, I will decide!
This is what I think, this is what I have decided!”
But,
unfortunately, your criteria are totally worldly, human, biological,
psychological, emotional—in general, not Divine. They are not Divine, my child!
Few have the strength to put a limit on their instincts and passions and say
not “what I like,” “what suits me,” but “Lord, this is what I think, but Thou,
Lord, how doth Thou look upon it? Because I can be blind.” When emotions and
love are not leavened with the love of Christ, they are only human and blind, and
therefore you don’t see clearly.
Yes, this
impulse and desire are necessary, to lay a beginning, but we need reason to
look at several things logically. And where can this happen? In the Church. How
else can you get enlightenment? By yourself? Not praying, not confessing, and
not communing? Therefore, I gave one man practical advice: “Every day, read the
Akathist to the Most Holy Theotokos. Are you doing this?”
“I don’t
manage; I don’t think I have enough time.”
“Okay, if
you don’t have enough time, then don’t do it. But if you don’t have enough time
to do it, then I understand that your problem doesn’t really bother you.”
“How
could I not be bothered, father? I want to find her and start a family!”
If it
bothered you, you wouldn’t leave it up to chance. You should be at least a
little tense. The Israelites passed through the Red Sea on dry land, because it
was a miracle, but you must sweat a little, do something, bring something. How?
By your prayer, by which you show your strong desire. You show it in prayer to
the Most Holy Theotokos and to our Lord, and you say, “Most Holy Theotokos,
give me the love of thy Son and send me the person who would love me and who I
would love, that we might spend the remainder of our lives together and that
our whole family would love the Lord God, thy Son,” and the Most Holy Theotokos
will give it to you.
You say,
“Do I really have to do it every day?”
Yes, you
are not serious; you don’t look seriously upon the spiritual life, and that
which you’re seeking doesn’t bother you, because if it bothered you, you would,
not just once a day, but constantly, read the akathist.
You say,
“If I knew it would work, then I would do it!”
Do you
see? This is where your big problem is. Do you recognize it? Now you’ve peered
into the very root of the problem—you don’t believe. We don’t believe in the
power of God, the power of prayer, in the Lord, and therefore we don’t pray,
therefore we don’t hope in prayer. I tell you otherwise: The Lord therefore
does not listen to these unbelieving, cold, formal prayers. What does He say?
“Leave him, leave him for a while, let him ‘bake,’ let him cry out from the
heart.”
The Lord
does not torment you; He wants you to mature. To mature means to begin to look
seriously upon your relationship with God, with people, and to understand that
these important questions are not answered outside of the Church, because,
unfortunately, after divorce everyone runs to the Church. When your children
lose their way, you say, “Father, save my child!”
When
something happens at home: “Father, take these names and commemorate them! Our
family is falling apart!”
But why?
Are we really going to pick up the pieces all the time? The light of Christ
exists not to illuminate some of the debris, but whole diamonds, shining with
paradisiacal light and Divine beauty. The Church does not exist only for
failed, tormented, and suffering spouses.
Those of
you who have passed through danger—you who are drawn to the Church, who have
found the path, even through sickness and suffering: bravo! You deserve praise.
And who else is standing at the beginning—may the mistakes and failures of
others make you think.
The truth
is that it’s impossible without Christ to survive these events and not soon
feel the stench of corruption, death, and decay. It’s difficult, I think, it’s
impossible for people to have a strong bond without Christ—when it’s built just
on money, or favors, and so on; but when a tempest arises in someone’s
relationship, who doesn’t then exclaim, “O, my Lord, save me!”?
Those who
love Christ without coercion, out of gratitude, out of love, because their
hearts are thus attuned, are worthy of admiration. Blessed are those who in a
maelstrom of problems—at least then—turn to God and find their path.
I pray to
God that you all might find this path and meet the love of your life on it, and
that you might walk hand-in-hand with them, and not that one be pulled here,
and another there, but that you were both pulled to the East, that is, to
Christ! I always pray to God, that you would experience miracles in your life,
such as those we have spoken about, like the very greatest miracle—the feeling
of God’s presence and love in our hearts and lives!
By Archimandrite Andrei (Konanos)
Source: http://orthochristian.com/106288.html
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