I was baptized late, at 15. This happened at the urgent request of the mother. I was a non-believer then. After my baptism, things began to happen to me that I could not explain physically. I remember when I was 19 I was standing at a bus stop. Around ten people, changing from foot to foot, waiting for the bus. Suddenly, 200 meters away, I see a car flying at high speed. I had a voice in my head, “Get back, or she’ll come at you!” And this voice had such power that it was very difficult to resist it. And I bounced ten meters down the sidewalk. The car drove into the sidewalk exactly where I was standing five seconds ago. The hood with the clang opened and some heavy rectangular box fell to my feet. A battery or something. That was the first time in my life that I felt crossed.
The explanation for all this came much later.
Another time my Guardian Angel reminded me of myself was after my first attempts at church.
I went to get some bread with my mother’s old bag. I see an elderly, unremarkable person coming towards me. Suddenly, the same clear inner voice was in my head: “Look, this is your father!” I had a childhood resentment against my father: “Everyone has, but I don’t!” Why did he leave me?!? Against this background, the inner voice was so shocking that I immediately turned abruptly in his direction, not realizing why this crumpled uninteresting type should be my father. Turned around again. I see him running towards me and waving his hand: stop, stop! I stopped out of curiosity. He runs up and says,
— I’m your father.
— I know, I answer him.
— You can’t know me. You were a year old when your mother and I separated. I recognized your bag. Your mother wore it when she was pregnant.
How many times as a child did I imagine this meeting. I will tell him all the insults he has accumulated over the years. And then… I couldn’t say anything. Somewhere everything disappeared at the sight of a stranger looking away.
Then it wasn’t interesting. Unnecessary excuses and empty promises. All that older people usually say in such cases, unexpectedly encountering forgotten adult children.
It was different. The state of quiet spiritual joy, in which I was then almost constantly, was immediately replaced by a storm of condemnation and malice. I told this to my sisters in Christ, and instead of sympathetic ahs and ohs I heard the unflappable answer:
— It should be. You began to pray for your parents, even through the stump of the deck, but still remember your father on the morning rule. A guardian angel showed you the person you were praying for. Your judgment is understandable, too. This is only proof that your soul is still covered with sinful layers. You have to work hard to learn how to forgive your debtors. Otherwise, reading “Our Father” doesn’t make sense.
Maria Sarajishvili
The Holy Land Charitable Foundation
Soul investment!
Orthodox stories from life
