When I was 16, I used to talk online with a boy from another city, 3 years older than me, who had had problems with drugs. At that time, he was trying to rebuild his life, or, at least, that's what he claimed. From what he told me, he didn't even feel comfortable with the friends he'd gotten into trouble with anymore. "I haven't had a drink in a month," he told me, and I was glad, on the evening he invited me to a party in Bucharest. Thank God I had a cold, was feverish, and had a cough that prevented me from speaking, because I really wanted to see him. I had missed the afternoon train home and wandered around with my cousin until the next train (at 11 at night), so it was very tempting to go and meet him.
Right from the start, he seemed to me like a warrior's soul, wrestling with the awareness of God's existence. He was an atheist, somewhat nihilistic. He said he was no longer nihilistic, but rather positioned himself on the border of existentialism.
As always, through the lens of my savior complex, I stubbornly refused to run away, even though interacting with him, especially since it was via social media, was doing me a lot of harm. I was waiting for him to show his soul, to open his heart, and he almost never did. I was convinced that, beneath all those layers of suffering, rebellion, ignorance, there was light ‒ light potentially gushing forth with love, warmth, passion, which the Lord had placed in his heart. I felt that something within him knew that we are not alone in the world, that I wasn't totally crazy (because I had a relationship with Him, even if it was tumultuous and "conflictual" ‒ with the appropriate quotes, because a child warring with their own father, when the father bears nothing but love for them, is not a conflict).
Eventually, however, when I got tired of every drop of life I received from Above draining out of me little by little, I stopped responding to him. Because, in fact, I wasn't better; I was powerless, and I couldn't be a savior (even if I now know that we don't have the right to take on this role, no matter how truly good we are).
I prayed for him, I think, for about two years afterward, for him to be well and to return to God. I would have continued praying, I didn't intend to stop, but I no longer felt called to do so. That doesn't mean I don't mention him from time to time. Since then, I haven't known absolutely anything about him. Why am I telling this story? Maybe it has a more concrete purpose, but all I know is that I felt I had to write. I remembered him today when I started a playlist of music with a Christian message. Prayer, even though I no longer listen to Cedry2k. I talked about music with this boy, and he recommended that I listen to Cedry2k a few times, but I refused ‒ curiously, I wonder why, since I had listened to many other things he sent or recommended. So he knew I was into Christianity and all that, he knew Cedry2k sings about the soul and repentance, and he extended an encouraging hand on this path.
Later, although my memory might be deceiving me, a friend sent me the song "Prayer." I cried listening to it, I got goosebumps, and ‒ this I know for sure ‒ I went to my dad and showed him the song, and he listened and only offered a smile that said he understood more than I did (I had no idea about the references to the Saints of the Prisons, the political undertones). So I hadn't really understood the lyrics, but I felt the emotion fully. It's in vain, but I still wonder, what if I had listened then, the first time I was invited, to the prayer of a seemingly hopeless person?
How terrifying is darkness when it makes you keep your eyes tightly shut in fear, unable to see a speck of light! For, no matter how oppressive it may be, darkness cannot withstand even the weakest candle flame!
I never actually had the courage to open up the discussion about faith with him. I found out he was an atheist when I told him I was fasting. Then he simply said to me: “But if you still want to believe in something, don't believe in a wicked god.” What confusion! I wish I had told him that God doesn't hold me in chains, but gave His life so that I! I! could be free.
I was just a child who had ‒ as I do now, for that matter ‒ ideas and dreams bigger than herself. But back then, I didn't know how to offer them to Him. I didn't know how to let myself be led. Most of all, I didn't know how to listen.
I don't believe people cross paths by chance; rather, even when an encounter seems useless, perhaps we don't understand the work of the One who arranges all things for our salvation.
I regret only one thing, looking back: that I wasn't a good example, in the sense that I didn't properly represent life in Christ before a person for whom I was, perhaps, the only connection to Orthodoxy. One could say I was cowardly and didn't take on the responsibility I claimed, but I understand that was my measure at the time. As the saying goes: don't build another's house by tearing down your own.
Therefore, I strive to use every occasion I remember him to offer a good thought, a prayer. May His will be with us all, that is, may we be saved!
Gala Jura
Photography by Alex Dos Santos / pexels.com