11 years. A Sense of Loneliness.translated

Reader's Question:

Greetings! I am 11 years old, and I often feel a sense of loneliness. Of course, I know that God will not abandon me, but this feeling is so sticky. And when there are no family members in the apartment, it becomes scary. There are creaks, as if footsteps, shadows. What should I do?

Father's Answer:

Father Evgeny Chebukhin

Greetings, esteemed reader!

When I was a child, feelings and emotions similar to those you describe often troubled me. But later, they bothered me much less. I am confident that the same will happen with you sooner or later. Just wait a little.

To make it easier for you to deal with unpleasant thoughts and fears now, please learn by heart a short prayer (the Lord's Prayer, for example), and recite it often silently to yourself. At least this helped me a lot back then.

Michael Yuryevich Lermontov, the famous Russian writer and poet, writes about this in one of his poems:

In moments of difficult life, Sadness presses on my heart. I repeat one miraculous prayer By heart.

There is a divine power In living words that resonate, And breathes an incomprehensible...