Vanya, and Faithfulness

All my housecleaning muscles are tired. Connor and I had tea after lunch and now I want to go back to bed. But I think that is partly because I stayed up till one reading Vanya in my closet. and then Mom, who didn't know of my midnight vigil, woke me up at 6:30 to have coffee time with her. Well, I didn't want to miss that, so I got up, but wasn't a very coherent companion, and when everyone else got up I promptly went back to bed till 10:00. It was very odd.

But, aside from that...Vanya, by Myrna Grant was a very good book, and just what I needed. It's the story of a Russian Christian guy in his late teens who went into the Red Army under Communism and was martyred within a few years. As soon as he went in, they started persecuting, interrogating, and hounding him to renounce Jesus. He was so constant, and every time he underwent another impossible trial, he cried out to God, and God rescued him. So many miracles happened because of him that many of the atheists around him became believers.

My favorite part was his testimony during one of these trials. His authorities sent him to stand outside in sub-zero temperatures in a summer uniform at night until he was willing to deny what they thought of as his religious nonsense. He stood there for hours. When the officers eventually came to check on him, expecting to find him frozen to death, they were shocked to discover him stamping his feet and rubbing his hands, no colder than they were after their five minutes out-of-doors.

Although Vanya was thrilled at the miracle God was doing in keeping him from freezing to death, as soon as the officers left, he became very broken and cried out to God...

"He was no better than any of the young people in his congregation at home. His parents had suffered in difficult situations for years. He knew pastors who had been questioned, arrested, even sent to prison camps. Yet he was touched again and again by God's direct power and deliverance...He didn't want to be special, he didn't deserve miracles or mysteries. He ought to be freezing. He wasn't good enough. Hot tears rimmed his eyes..."

So he cried and prayed and finally was about to fall asleep, when an officer called him inside. The wondering officer asked "What kind of person are you?

And out of his brokenness, Vanya answered, "Oh comrade, I am a person just like you. But I prayed to God and was warm."

This story encouraged me, because even as I read the book, I felt the weight of my own inadequacy and wimpiness. But this reminded me that it's not what I can do, but what God can do. I want to run the race and fight the fight. I want to be like Vanya, like Paul, even like Jesus, as he has called us to be. I want to live a life that faces pain and death with confidence and even joy. I don't want to always try to preserve and shield myself.

But even one of the persecutions Vanya underwent would have put me under. One foul prison cell, one beating, one "refrigeration." I'm a huge wimp. I have plenty of struggles and pains, but my life is so easy, physically, and many ways emotionally, too. I cried when I had the chicken pox and I moaned for days when I sliced my fingernail with the potato peeler. My fingernails stay purple with cold in East Texas winter. Weeding the garden is often my greatest physical hardship, and I have never broken a bone.

I cried to God that I want to pursue Him with all my heart, but I'm not fit to be His saint. I don't have the willpower to undergo Vanya's kind of suffering again and again. I can hardly stand up to my elementary hardships at home...ones like holding back complaints, helping with kitchen chores, and being cheerful in the morning. I am so easily discouraged, so easily reduced to tears, so quickly driven to my knees.

Could this be a good thing? All He seemed to say to me was "You already have what it takes to do this..." and then, "Be faithful, Cass."

Faithful. "Be faithful unto death, and I will give you the crown of life." Revelations 2:10 That was Vanya's last word in a letter to his brother before he was brutally killed. And in Revelations 3:8 there is a dear verse...

"I know your works...for you have a little strength, and have kept my word, and not denied My name."

Really, every time I complain or hurt someone else, I'm denying Jesus' name. He has forgiven me for those sins, but doesn't this mean that I'm fighting the same fight Vanya fought so faithfully? God has made me small and weak. I am like a cat, finicky, pampered, wanting to avoid the water as long as possible. Vanya, Paul, and many of my friends seem like joyful, bounding puppies, so ready to get down and dirty, to bear anything. But maybe He has a special place for this weak one. If I truly am driven to my knees, and not into the pit of despair, so much the better. If I am driven to tears, maybe I can share God's heart.

Just some thoughts.