Dialogue with St. Sophrony: When Despair Becomes Resurrection

Morning had not yet broken,

but something in the darkness felt thinner,

as if the night had been stretched to its limit.

I sat where I always do,

half-in shadow, half-in longing,

waiting for God and not knowing why.

St. Sophrony stood near,

as though he had never left.

⸻

Disciple: Father, you spoke of despair as a threshold.

If that is so, then what stands beyond it?

What comes after the breaking of the heart?

Where is resurrection found?

St. Sophrony: Resurrection is never an event that happens to a man.

It is something God births within him.

It begins not with light,

but with surrender.

Not with triumph,

but with truth.

When a soul has fallen to its lowest point

and finds it cannot die,

then it discovers that life was never its own to begin with.

Disciple: But I feel no rising.

No joy.

Only a dull endurance,

like breathing under water.

St. Sophrony: Endurance is the first tremor of resurrection.

It is the soul choosing God

even when it cannot feel Him.

You think resurrection is fire.

Sometimes it is a single pulse of warmth

in a frozen heart.

You think it is light.

Sometimes it is the faintest outline of dawn

behind a black horizon.

Do not despise small beginnings.

Disciple: And hope, when does it return?

St. Sophrony: Hope does not return

it awakens.

It was never dead, only buried in the ash of your suffering.

Hope is not the absence of pain,

it is the decision, however fragile,

to turn your face toward God while in pain.

If you wait to feel strong,

you will never rise.

Resurrection begins in weakness, always.

Disciple: But how do I rise if I do not know how to stand?

St. Sophrony: You do not stand alone.

You let Christ stand in you.

You offer Him your collapsed spirit,

your breathless prayer,

your empty hands,

and He answers not by removing the cross,

but by placing His shoulder beneath yours.

He never told us to escape Golgotha.

He told us to meet Him there.

⸻

There was a long silence.

Not emptiness, but depth.

A sacred weight that pressed gently instead of crushing.

⸻

Disciple: Father… what does resurrection feel like

when it is real?

Sophrony’s voice softened —

a whisper like wind moving through cypress branches.

St. Sophrony: Resurrection does not come with fireworks.

It comes like the slow thaw of winter.

You only notice it when you realize

you are no longer numb.

Resurrection is when a man finds himself praying again

not because he must,

but because love pulls the words from him like breath.

It is when tears become sweet.

When suffering becomes compassion.

When despair turns into mercy

for all who walk the same dark path.

Resurrection is when wounds do not close,

but shine.

Disciple: Shine?

St. Sophrony: Yes.

For the risen Christ did not hide His scars.

He consecrated them.

Our own resurrection is the same.

We do not forget the pain,

we offer it back transfigured.

Your despair is not the end,

it is the tomb in which grace is fermenting.

Wait.

Even stillness can be faith.

Disciple: Then what shall I do now?

St. Sophrony: Stand in the dark with your lamp unlit.

Stand with empty hands.

Stand with nothing.

And Christ will be your morning.