I didn`t even know that I have left. I thought, very subtly and insistently I got the idea that the whole world is my home. But what a naïve error, of detail! This thought about being a citizen of the whole world keeps you in what is downward, in what is earthly. And I was leaving in this way, with a global mind but I didn`t know where to go. I was tasting freedom as if this was what I supposed to have done all my life, at least this is what it was induced to me from the outside. Once again a detail – there is a naturalness of the world and there is His eternity. But then I didn`t know it, this is something which is not revealed from the outside.
I changed trains, planes, houses and people. I was traveling all the time. From time to time, in some quiet moments, I heard Someone asking me:
`What are you looking for?` I didn`t know how to identify the voice or the answer. But if I paid attention, I felt the void of the world I thought I belonged to till the bottom of my heart, as a devastation. The more were merrier and fuller the days, the more difficult were the nights and peace, as if it were a pedagogy I didn`t understand then.
But You made me come back. You still do it. Glory to You, God, cause You took me back home, out of Your great Love.
I wasn`t even worthy to come back like the prodigal son, You had to come after me and take me by the hand gently and show me…I still marvel. How good is Home at You, God! What taste has the joy and how it feels! How soothing is suffering. Maybe it is not appropriate what I say, but sometimes I think that You were glad too to see me back. Otherwise I can`t explain all the blessings that came afterwards since then: the wedding, the baby, my father confessor, the people, oh, the people in which it`s seen so well Your image. And if I pay attention in any moment I notice more and more proves of Your care. With You, God, even the falls are less painful.
However, I begin to understand that although I thank You for the family You blessed me with, Home doesn`t mean a certain homestead, or the grandma`s semolina pudding, or the feasts or a baby cooing. Although it is not easy, I think that Home doesn`t mean either a certain comfort or a feeling of worldly safety. Home is only about the hope for Resurrection and Your care
At You I have met for the first time the freedom of restraint, sweeter than all the pleasures of the world. I found the power which comes from enduring sufferance and not from running away of it. I found the love which gives life. And I still find them slowly and hesitantly.
Now I know You were calling me in the moment of silence. You are still calling me when I move away as an ignorant baby. And then I come back again to the Home from the icon.
Anca Negurici
Source: http://www.familiaortodoxa.ro