429- I Won’t Travel Without Having a Dwelling There

A few months ago, a young woman came to see me and she was in a violent rage. Her husband, who works in the United States, sent her a ticket to travel to him. She insisted on not going and when I asked why, she said that she would go only if her husband rented her an apartment.

I explained to her that renting an apartment in the State where her husband worked could be done in half an hour. It was different from what happened in large cities like Cairo and Alexandria.

The wife insisted on not going unless she gets her wish. After a lot of effort on behalf of the beloved Father Matthew Basil, she finally agreed to go. When she arrived there, she phoned her parents and told them that everything was better than she expected.

The same situation was repeated with a girl, engaged to a man in the United States. Her fiancé came to see me while I was there complaining of his fiancée. She wants him to rent a place and completely furnish it before she gets her entry visa to the United States. Doing that, he added, will cost him thousands of dollars with no benefit.

This is how, every fiancée and wife, cares that her fiancé or husband prepares for them a place to live. In some countries it takes months or maybe a year for that to happen and in some others it takes only a few days.

And I, as my soul is lifted to meet its Bridegroom, see that He is preparing a place for me, the bride. He has been saying for close to two thousand years:

“I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you,

I will come again and receive you to myself; that where I am, there you may be also” (John 14.2-3).

He is assuring us that He is preparing glory for us since the beginning of the world. It is a house for a wedding prepared by the word of the Almighty God since the beginning of the world till now.

→ English translation of the story here at St-Takla.org: لن أسافر حتى يؤجر لي مسكنًا!

You promised me a house of matrimony,

So that I live with You an eternal wedding.

You have started to prepare it since the beginning of the world.

I wonder what You have prepared for me O the Desire of my heart!

Carry me to Your Father’s Bosom

Where I shall settle forever.

A Wolf’s Gift

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

The Dilemma of the Worms of the Pool