Anna's Search
Anna’s* husband participated, not long ago, in a short therapy program because of his gambling problem. After a while he relapsed and he didn’t want to ask for help again. Anna asked for advice, writing several emails. In return I encouraged her to participate in the Aftercare Conference, where she would have the possibility of meeting other people in similar situations.
This is how she writes about her experiences at the Conference:
“I went there with fears. A sentence in the newsletter encouraged me: ’The one, who believes, will not flee.’ I had lots of questions, yet the one to which I most wanted an answer, without formulating it, was this: How was God gracious? Of course I always pictured God for myself, in whom I believed, yet mostly fearing Him rather than loving Him, and I also departed from Him.
God came after me, not in a painless, yet wonderful way, didn’t let me perish and began teaching me how He was. I learned lots of things with my intellect, but I couldn’t feel His love, acceptance and forgiveness.
At this conference I realised God didn’t resemble my father, rather He is another Father, who follows his child’s path with a loving look, whatever the child may do.
I do not know what will happen to my husband and what we may expect, yet I feel now that I am safe. I pray I will not lose this feeling and also that it would not be just a passing excitement. At the Conference I met lots of people, though they did not mention God with every second word, yet one could feel God’s presence in them. I dream about becoming such a person.”
Kálmán Adorján, minister
* Not her real name