Following the Flame, Part IV : God’s Plans and Our Plans

Life resumed, at least outwardly, as before.
I continued my studies in the United States, but something had changed within me. The flame that had begun years earlier was no longer merely a longing. It had become a direction.
Whenever vacations arrived, I found myself returning to Greece.
I was searching.
Searching for monasteries.
Searching for guidance.
Searching for examples of authentic Orthodox life.
My commitment to serve True Orthodoxy had become complete. I would not agree with anyone that gave me other choices. The option of being “here and there” was the cause of my departing from many people.
I remain grateful for them.
Yet my heart had already made its choice.
I had found the Church.
I had found the Faith for which I was willing to give everything.
And once that conviction settled within me, there was no turning back.
When my studies finally came to an end, I returned to Greece for a longer period of time.
Yet despite everything that had happened, I still imagined my future in the United States.
It was the country of my birth.
It was the country in which I had grown up.
It was home.
In my mind, I would somehow establish my life there while remaining faithful to the path that God had placed before me.
What I did not understand at the time was that God often allows us to make plans while quietly preparing different ones.
Looking back now, I can see that if it had been God’s will for me to remain in the United States forever, the doors would have opened.
They did not.
At the time, I found this confusing.
Years later, I came to see it as providence.
Among the blessings of those years was my relationship with an older bishop in Greece to whom I confessed to as a young layman. He belonged to a generation that carried within it the memory of a simpler Church life, one formed through struggle, faithfulness, and sacrifice.
His sisters according to the flesh were all nuns. His parents, aunts, uncles, and some cousins had all become monastics too. And around them at every liturgy, monks and nuns from many places would gather there. Even the laypeople were like scenes from a patericon book. Amazing zeal for the spiritual life existed then.
It was among them that I received some of my earliest practical experiences of church life.
I still remember standing at the chanting stand while they patiently instructed me.
“Read the Psalter from here.”
Simple words.
Simple moments.
Yet many of the foundations of our lives are built upon such moments.
No one imagines, while learning where to stand or how to read, how important those memories will become decades later.
During these years, I also made pilgrimages to the Holy Mountain.
Athos was different then.
Perhaps every generation says that, but in this case, I believe it was true.
The Holy Mountain still contained many fathers of an older world.
Their cells were often poor.
Some buildings seemed ready to collapse.
There was little comfort and little concern for comfort.
Many of those monks had remained faithful to their elders through decades of hardship.
They stayed in places that others might have abandoned.
They repaired what they could.
They endured what they could not repair.
And they continued praying.
As a young man, I did not fully understand what I was seeing.
Only later did I recognize the greatness hidden beneath such simplicity. Something so difficult for us today.
The world often notices success, growth, and accomplishment.
God notices faithfulness.
Those old monks taught me that perseverance is a greater virtue than achievement.
I thought I was searching for my future.
In reality, God was preparing me for it.
The road ahead remained hidden from me.
But step by step, monastery by monastery, conversation by conversation, prayer by prayer, Christ was leading me exactly where He wanted me to be.