Suffering Primary School

Helen was two. All you had to do was ask her. “How old are you?”

“Two!” (The number of fingers accompanying this reply could vary.)

In truth, being two is hard. Barring extraordinary circumstances, during the ripe old age of two you enter the World of No.

Formerly, you lived in Yes World where everything you did was “Yes!”

You smile. Yes!

Laugh. Yes!

Stop crying. Yes!

Crawl. Yes!

Talk. Yes!

Walk. Yes!

Your every move and most waking moments is utterly adorable. Yes!

Then one day you entered discipline’s door. Search as you may, the door to Yes World is, from that time forward, only a goal. Yes World has ambassadors, grandparents, teachers, and other wrinkled acquaintances. But the people you live with have apparently chosen, for the foreseeable future, to live in the World of No.

You mark on the walls. No!

Hit your brother. No!

Tear up the toilet paper. No!

Run through the parking lot. No!

Impersonate a beast in Church. No!

Eat all the chocolate. No!

It would be easy to believe, as grandparents apparently do, that parents have lost all measure of charity. That’s not exactly true. As the comic says, “Grandchildren are God’s way of rewarding you for not killing your children.” In fact, all parents are familiar with the World of No.

Such struggles are also fleshed out in our spiritual lives.

“He who enters into a covenant of prayer with the Father in the name of Christ has first to consign himself to ‘Chastisement Kindergarten,’ then to ‘Suffering Primary School,’ then to the ‘Higher Institute of Affliction.’ ‘For it is fitting that he … should make the pioneer of their salvation perfect through suffering’ (Heb.2.10). For it is impossible to share his glory without first sharing with him in his sufferings.”

So writes Matthew the Poor in his book, Orthodox Prayer Life: The Interior Way.

He continues: “Everyone who wishes to be made perfect in faith has to be first made perfect and purified by the Spirit. He has to undergo the various kinds of discipline to become fit to witness to faith in God amidst sufferings and tribulations, and before the fiercest threats of death. For as one’s sufferings bear witness to one’s worthiness of glory, so will God also bear witness: ‘Come, O blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world’ (Mt 25.34).

As you can see brothers and sisters, by God’s mercy and charity – Yes World – still exists. Let us all, children unto Him, persevere in faith, hope, and love.

This meditation originally appeared on the Antiochian webpage.