E. I.!
Heartfelt congratulations to you, my dear eldress, with your eightieth birthday. Well, you and I have lived to see this blessed time, when the field of our lives is white with the harvest, and the stalks heavy with grain are leaning toward the earth.
The heart fears, yet it rejoices. The Lord is near. What shall we render unto the Lord, the Great Sower, for all that He has rendered unto us? What besides gratitude shall we bring to Him? For we have lived a much-laborious and much-suffering life.
We received from Him the most valuable gift of faith, and our soul and heart now yearns for Him, for His love.
“O Lord! All is known to Thee; do Thou with me as Thou willt!” The Lord is with you, my child! The Lord is with us! With Him it is good always and everywhere.
Thus shall we continue our lives, rejoicing for what we have lived and experienced; rejoicing that life continues still; that the Dawn of Eternity knocks. Glory be to God for all things!
One God everywhere
Dear in the Lord L.
If you will continuously read the Holy Scriptures, then your heart and mind will find peace, and you will see everything clearly in life. The Lord will tell you at the proper time where you should live.
There is but One God, in the city, in the country, in Russia and abroad. God’s Providence arranges the fate of nations and of each person separately. Send off your young ones, and you yourself live with T. at home. They will return to you again, and you will be of help to them. “Avoid empty wives’ tales,” as the Scripture says.
Live every day with God, and He will guide us through life’s storms to rest with a peaceful heart. Everything through Him, everything from Him, and everything to Him. The Lord be with you! May God give you wisdom and strength!
A mother’s sorrow
Dear L. A.!
Sorrows, only sorrows now lead people to knowledge of the truth. What your mother’s love could not do for you before, is now being done through your maternal sorrow for your son.
You can imagine how your own mother’s heart must have ached over you, because she could not inculcate in you a love for the Truth, for Life. For without God, dear L. A., it is impossible to live; we can only torturously die, observing the ubiquitous destruction of life around us. A mother receives the final, most sensitive blow, when this destruction overtakes the one to whom she gave life.
Give thanks to God that He has not denied you, as you denied Him before. Prayer itself will teach you to pray, just as life teaches how to live. Read and make sense of the words of the prayers which are in the prayer book, and apply them to yourself, to your life. This will bring a different apprehension of life, and you will behold God’s mercy. My prayers are only an aid to your mother’s prayers. And I promise to fulfill your request.
My dear, always write the word God with a capital G.[1] God is the Creator, the Provider, the Savior. While our human limitations and infirmity so require God’s strength in order to live.
May God preserve you and make you wise, and give you the strength to be an intercessor for your son before God.
[1]In communist Russia, God was always printed in secular literature with a lower case initial letter [trans.].
