When It's Getting Dark

By Anna Bokova

She got up with an agonizing feeling grabbing her entirely. Is it true that her dream will never be fulfilled? This time she knew what to do.

Before, there were moments when she sank into the depths of despair to such an extent that she lost a desire to live. Now, instead of going in for self-analysis, she prayed to God and repeated aloud some encouraging Bible verses and added: "God knows what He's doing..."

Then, she went to the stadium. That day, she was jogging a lot in order to get tired and to drive away the silly thoughts which occupied her mind. That morning, she realized something very important: Every flower on the earth likes sunshine.

Every flower turns to the sun; but, what would happen if sun shined all the time? God allows that sometimes the sky becomes grey, piercing wind arises, and it rains. The same is in our life-- He wants us to grow!

She was whispering: "No matter how hard it is I will go through it. May your will be done, God".

She didn't know that there was great joy in Heaven because of her words. This was because she was in the process of comprehending the most important, and often the most difficult to realize, science-- the science of TRUST!

On our path with God, whether we want it or not, not one of us can escape studying this science because in it is where the very essence of Christianity exists. Living in a human body, Jesus also sat for this exam. The powers of His soul were strained to the greatest extent and the scarlet drops of His blood were showing to the sleeping garden of Gethsemane and to the ages to come. What does it mean to LOVE? Other people sat for this exam as well. Do you remember the family from Bethany—the close friends of Jesus? All of us know this gospel story with the happy-ending very well; but, have you ever, even once in your life, put yourself in the place of Mary and Martha in the beginning of the narration?

"Lazarus was stricken with sudden illness and his sisters sent to the Savior saying, ‘Lord, behold, he whom thou lovest is sick…’".

They thought that He would immediately respond to their message, and be with them as soon as He could reach Bethany. Anxiously they waited for a word from Jesus. As long as the spark of life was yet alive in their brother, they prayed and watched for Jesus to come; however, the messenger returned without Him. Yet, he brought the message: "This sickness is not unto death", and they clung to the hope that Lazarus would live.

Tenderly they tried to speak the words of hope and encouragement to the almost unconscious sufferer. When Lazarus died, they were bitterly disappointed... Just imagine. What a severe exam.

Many-many years before this, old Abraham was climbing one of the mountains of Moriah with his long-awaited son. There, in order to fulfill the most incomprehensible of the incomprehensible commands of God, he had to offer Isaac as a burnt offering. Through the grey-haired masses of ages we still hear the subdued sigh of the father of all believers, and we may clearly see the trembling of his lips when he was saying in a barely heard whisper: "My son, God will provide for Himself the lamb for a burnt offering..." (Genesis 22:8). Read this story in your Bible once again. What an inconceivable exam!

Probably, it is you today who is sitting for such an exam. There is no strength inside of you; sometimes it seems too hard to believe that there is Someone above. The One who, for some strange reason (as you think), is called loving and just by many people; the One who you’ve probably called the same-- until this moment. And now, where has He disappeared? Why, if He still exists, is He listening to the constrained wheezes of your sobbing with indifference? Is it LOVE?

You may be standing at the grave of the one whom you loved more than life. You may be standing at the steep in which the fragments of your dream are swiftly falling. Or, you're holding your medical record with a horrifying diagnosis. Everything is spreading before your eyes...

Just know that --right now-- you're sitting for an exam. There is a special examination question for each and every one of us. However, it was not God who wrote it. Not God, but His worst enemy.

Our Heavenly Father has made everything possible: very diligently, He checked every line in order to confirm that you will be able to endure it. When He was doing this, it started to rain. You must know: God was crying. In every tear He whispered: "My beloved, precious child! Go through it, please! The day is coming when I'll tell you WHY it was needed. And now, just endure questions with no answers in your heart. I believe in you, my child!!!"