Ordinary People in Difficult Times

Lena Magomedova – Vladivostok, Russian Federation

I want to tell you about my friends -- two beautiful women. This is a story about the great works of our God in the lives of ordinary people in difficult times.
I met Natasha five years ago. She was a horseback riding club coach, and I was practicing horseback riding at the club where she was working. I knew that
Natasha believed in God, and we talked about faith from time to time when we met. I tried to tell her about my life and about how my relationship with God
strengthens me. Talking to Natasha, I saw how much she needed God, but I could not convince her to start visiting the church and to study the Bible. I often felt
frustrated, and I lost faith, but every time I shared my disappointment and sense of failure in prayer, I received support to keep my faith in God’s power. We
continued to communicate; we became friends. We celebrated New Year’s Eve and birthdays together. Sasha (her partner) and Natasha got to know my family
and many other members of our church community.

Lost, with no hope of return

This is Natasha’s story about this period of her life with Sasha.

 “I believed in God from my childhood: that He exists and always helps, but I didn’t
think about what God wants from me and why He created me. I went to the Orthodox Church maybe twice a year, lit candles, petitioned God for the living and
those who had already died. I thought that it was necessary to show kindness, to help people and animals. But it turned out that everything is much deeper, and
that the truth is in the Bible. It turned my life upside down, filled it with incredible meaning, opened my eyes to the world, relationships with people and God. Lena
and I talked about faith. She invited us to church, but I said that we had no time, that we had so many problems and no time for meetings. Lena did not insist but
invited us again and again. Once our whole family even attended the church meeting. We liked it, but our life did not change. Like many families, we went
through various touchy situations in our lives, but we managed to carry on. For eleven years Sasha and I had been living together. Our relationship had gotten so
bad that life became hell. No love. Constant screaming, disagreements, humiliating one another, offenses, and accusations. It got to the point that we
could not spend a minute together without quarreling and hating one another. We broke up and almost stopped talking altogether. In a moment of utter loneliness, the Bible supported me. I learned what the Bible says about the role of a wife and about what kind of relationships are possible. I began to hope and to want to change everything and to change myself. The same evening, I wrote Sasha a message in which I told him everything and offered to try to build our relationship again. But he refused. I sobbed for a long time and regretted that just when I had come to understand everything, it turned out that everything was lost with no hope of return.”

The turnaround

“Despite this, I decided to continue studying the Bible, to work on changing my heart and learning to trust God. One day Sasha met me at work and asked what was happening to me. He said that he did not recognize me and was surprised by my new behavior. I shared about how God was changing my life and offered to try again to restore our relationship; I told him we could learn this from the Bible. Sasha agreed. We met with Ruslan and Lena and talked about forgiveness and compromise. We began to meet with the disciples and study the Bible.

Sometimes the old pain and resentment returned, we had a lot of questions. We were faced with the decision to be together or not. How to live, in general? During this difficult period God was always there and gave us strength to continue. Anger and aggression began to go away little by little, our minds cleared, and we began to speak more vulnerably and spiritually to one another. We repented and confessed everything to each other, we apologized for the pain we caused one another. We remembered our many good times and all the reasons we appreciate each other.”

Pandemic prayer

The Pandemic in 2020 brought about new fears and worries for me. It was hard for me to imagine life, and church especially, with no in-person meetings. The
pandemic changed habits I’d had for all the years I’d been a Christian. I remember going to the seaside to pray when the lockdown was announced.

I asked God to help me to meet someone who would like to study the Bible. As soon as I finished my prayer, Natasha called me and told me about her friend Zhenya, and that she needed help. I said that I was ready to meet with her right then. I believed that God would answer my prayer, but I did not expect it so soon! Thus began our “pandemic” weekly meetings. We prayed, talked, read the Bible, laughed, and wept together sometimes. Here is how Zhenya describes this period of her life: “Once again I was in over my head, in a codependent relationship with a man who didn’t need me, when my friend Natasha suggested to me that we could meet with her friend Lena to talk about life and to read the Bible together. I needed support, understanding and help. For me, this meeting was a chance for salvation! Thanks to our meetings and heart-to-heart conversations, I realized that all my life I have been looking for God, because only He can fill the hole in my heart. That empty place in my heart hurts and gives me the feeling that something is wrong with me; I need something, but I don’t know what it is. When Lena invited me to a Bible talk and introduced me to the students, it was like I found the missing puzzle piece. The disciples were always so joyful! This inspired me a lot! And although I still had a difficult path to travel, six months later on June 6, 2021, I was baptized!” 

One more crisis and the path to healing 

During a time of crisis in Sasha and Natasha’s relationship they accepted help from my husband Ruslan and me. We talked about Christian marriage and about the will of God for the life of every person. Together with another married couple from the Church, Sergey and Lena Berezyuk, we continued to study the first principles of Christianity. Sasha and Natasha officially registered their marriage and were baptized on June 21, 2021. For me this story is, first of all, a lesson from God about faith, which gains strength not from what is seen, but from God’s promises. All these years God had had been leading Sasha, Natasha and Zhenya to salvation. A huge part of the positive changes they had been slowly making over time were invisible to others, up until a certain point. The disciples who continued to show friendliness to them despite the many doubts and disappointments along the way, played a significant role in their conversions. These disciples acted in faith and remained engaged in the lives of these three people, with the love and light that only the Lord can give. Ezekiel 20:41 says, “I will accept you as fragrant incense when I bring you out from the nations and gather you from the countries where you have been scattered, and I will be proved holy through you in the sight of the nations.

AUTHOR BIO
Elena Magomedova is a women’s ministry leader in the Vladivostok Church of Christ. She was
baptized 29 years ago in the student group of the Novosibirsk Church of Christ, married for 24 years,
mother of two children, faithful disciples of Christ.

Елена Магомедова — лидер женского служения Владивостокской Церкви Христа.
Крестилась 29 лет назад в группе студентов Новосибирской церкви Христа, в браке 24
года, мать двоих детей, верных учеников Христа.