I didn’t understand before that the most important thing in life is humility.
Yesterday morning I woke up to the aroma of coffee that my husband brewed in the Turk. I thought how good it was that I had a beloved, living spouse. God bless! Every day I want to thank the Lord on my knees. I suddenly remembered the words that we usually hear at a wedding: “You still have everything ahead of you!” This is what peaceful, warm married couples say, who have dozens of years of living together behind them. Yes, they had everything, small children, sleepless nights, conflicts, a series of joyful events, grandchildren, and even great-grandchildren… That’s what my precious grandparents, who have been legally married for 53 years, said. And I believed everyone who convinced me that true happiness and true love come after about two decades… No, of course, these wise people spoke the truth, they shared sincerely and earnestly, but this was their path to sacrificial love, many years, intense, long. But God prepared a different path for me, a little over 11 years of sweet first marriage.
I lived like this for 5-8 years, believing that I still had everything ahead of me, that my children would grow up and I would get some sleep, that someday we would have a little more money and we could do some renovations, that we would marry our daughter off and dance a slow dance at her wedding, that in retirement I would finally take up long-term daily embroidery, like my neighbor, and my husband would peacefully read newspapers with a cup of strong tea. All the best will come later, it seemed to me so. Now you just need to save your strength, because there is so much ahead, both sad and happy… We must not forget about ourselves, because life is so long. And it turned out to be so short. A moment — and there is no person. And what could be brighter ahead? All that remains is to remember the past, lived in stupid dreams and expectations of the best. Every widow knows what it is — when another day you live lasts like a year, when you breathe, move, speak with all your might, when you need to think about children, take care of them, but there is nothing: your heart is torn, buried alive, and your eyes are swollen from tears…
Now I know for sure that the best is not ahead, but today, right now. I know that there is no time to warm up and everything good needs to be done at once. During. From the very first day, love and make your loved one happy, appreciate every moment. Who knows what will happen tomorrow? We need to cherish every sleepless night with the children, rock them, cover them, read fairy tales, sing lullabies. After all, it may turn out that, due to the fault of the doctor who entrusted the operation to an intern, you will never have children again. And these sleepless nights are the first and last in your life, and these strollers, these little things, these books for the little ones… Everything tears at your heart. If only we knew the future a little, then we would appreciate every second.
I didn’t understand before that the most important thing in life is humility. Mom often reminded me of this and was very sad that I was not like that. “Daughter, how will you live without humility?” — she said. Life has taught me, mom. Life has rinsed me so much, wrung me out and hung me out to dry on thin clotheslines that now, dripping with my last juices, I love, breathe, live and give the best to my loved ones. As best I can, as best I can. We’ll see what happens. In the meantime, our task, as Empress Alexandra Feodorovna wrote, is to make the people around us happy.
Yulia Chursina-Pavlova
Holy Land Charitable Foundation
Investment in the Soul!
Orthodox stories from life
