141- She is Your Daughter, Not Mine

 

St-Takla.org Image: A girl praying, happy woman, Coptic art صورة في موقع الأنبا تكلا: فتاة تصلي، طفلة، بنت، سيدة فرحة، فن قبطي

Since Estakhum was suffering from a severe illness, her pious mother, Paula, knelt before God and in complete submission she cried saying,

“My God You’ve granted me Estakhum. She’s Your daughter and not mine. You know if she had finished her mission on earth or not. If You wish to take her, then Thy will be done.

If she hadn’t finished her mission, allow her to stay; not for me but to serve Your holy name.”

Indeed God granted the daughter recovery.

As death became closer to St. Paula herself, saint Gerom described those moments saying, "God showed her that her time was close. Her body and her limbs became very cold and only her holy bosom carried the warm continuous beats of the soul. She started saying with the Psalmist:

“Lord, I have loved the habitation of Your house, and the place where Your glory dwells” (Ps. 26.8).

“How lovely is Your tabernacle, O Lord of hosts! My soul longs, yes, even faints for the courts of the

Lord, my heart and my flesh cry out for the living God” (Ps. 84.1-2).

“For a day in Your courts is better than a thousand. I would rather be a doorkeeper in the

House of my God than dwell in the tents of wickedness” (Ps. 84.10).

When I asked her why she remained silent, she refused to respond to my question. I asked her if she was in pain. She answered in Greek, that she was ok and that all matters as she sees them were calm and comforting. She lifted her finger toward her lips and made the sign of the cross over them; her breath then stopped.

→ English translation of the story here at St-Takla.org: هي ابنتك لا ابنتي!

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Short Stories (Stories for the Youth) Books by Father Tadros Yacoub Malaty

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