One day a young woman came to Optina Desert and asked to be christened here.
— And why do you want to be baptized in Optina? asked her hegumen Sergius (Rybko), now the rector of the Moscow church, and at that time the Optina hieromonk.
— And one old man comes to me and convinces me to be baptized. So I came to baptize with him.
When she arrived, she described in such detail the appearance of her “old man” that Father Sergius suspected: suddenly someone from the Optina elders came to her? He began to show her pictures and icons of the Optina Elders, but the woman confidently answered: “Not him.” And suddenly she shone with happiness, seeing the icon of St. Seraphim of Sarov:
— Here’s my old man, here he is, my happy one! He even says, you know, «My joy, please be baptized.»
God’s people sometimes see saints. But that St. Seraphim should come to an unbaptized person in our days is, you will agree, worthy of surprise. Father Sergius began to question the woman, inquiring what was special about her. And nothing special in her life seems to have been – she lives in a one-room apartment with her husband, son and a paralyzed mother-in-law, and works as a saleswoman. The salary is more than modest, but the woman did not even think that you can count or weigh someone. She had no idea how she could get into a fight with her husband without ever having a fight with him. In addition to her son, she would like to have more children, but God does not give children yet. And caring for the paralyzed mother-in-law, the young woman not only did not suffer, but literally did not aspire to her soul in her mother-in-law.
— After all, my husband and son almost do not go anywhere, so as not to leave our grandmother alone, she said. But the three of us are sitting in the evening, talking about something, and for some reason there is such joy in our hearts that I do not know how to tell.
Author: Nina Pavlova,
Escom is Faith.
The Holy Land Charitable Foundation
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Orthodox stories from life
