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help, I had actually relied upon my
own ability to avoid evil and meet
challenges. In a way, I had spent a
lot of time in prayer over the years
thanking God that I was not like the
rest of men. And, I surely did fail!
Whatever God the Holy Ghost had
been telling me at that hour, I could
not hear. I was so intent on hearing
only one message, the message I
wanted to hear, that I was not really
listening at all. Ah, but we are
created to do God’s Will and not our
own; to make our wills conform to His,
not vice-versa. How much we trust in
our own powers! And how greatly this
spoils even the best things we do!
Almighty God was testing me like gold
in the furnace, to see how much of self
remained in me after all of my prayers.
The greatest grace God can give a man
is to send him trial which, of his own
power, he cannot bear only to sustain
him with His Grace so that he may
endure to the end and be saved.
I spent four more
years at Lubianka
before the Lord was
finished tempering
and purifying my
soul. Now, my
cooperation was
expected and I was
given any number
of schemes in which
to partake. Uppermost in my mind
was the hopelessness of everything
and my powerlessness to cope with it.
I could see no way out that I was
approaching the end of my ability to
delay my decision. For one horrible
black moment, I lost all hope. I lost
sight of God. Realizing this, trembling
with fear, I turned to God in prayer. My
thoughts went to the agony of God in
the Garden: “Father, if it be possible,
let this chalice pass from Me; yet, not
as I will, but Thy Will be done!” This
was not just conformity to the Will
of God; it was total abandonment and
submission to the Father’s Will; it was
total surrender of self, a complete
stripping away of all human fears.
Immediately, I knew what I must do.
God’s Will was not hidden somewhere
at a distance in the situations in which I
found myself; the situations themselves
WERE His Will for me. He was asking
of me total trust, allowing for no
interference or restless striving on my
part. He was asking for a complete gift
of self, with nothing held back. It
demanded absolute faith. We are so
afraid to abandon ourselves totally into
God’s Hands for fear He will not catch
us if we fall. Only when I had reached
a point of total bankruptcy of my own
powers, did I, at last, surrender.
I left Lubianka not to face a firing squad,
but to begin a long journey from Moscow
to Siberia and I was overjoyed. There
was no easy, gradual breaking-in period.
After five years of total inactivity, in
that frozen wasteland, I began a
rigorous day’s work. We rose at 5 a.m.
and worked 15 hours a day. The living
conditions were intolerable and the
food ration was just barely enough to
keep one alive. No machine devised
by man could have withstood this
punishing regime. Under the constant
torture of hunger, cold, weariness,
distress and disease, and endurance
beyond belief, I came to truly realize
man is composed of body and soul.
The tendency of writers is to expound
distinctly that the spirit is willing but
the flesh is weak ... bring the flesh
into submission, subdue the body.
I think this is wrong. For whatever
reason, it is always the poor body that
takes the blame, as if sinful thoughts
and inclinations did not form first in
the mind, or as if sin did not consist
in setting one’s will (not the body),
against the Will of God. It was the
body which bore the brunt of all
suffering, though the soul might well
experience anguish. It was the body