Ekaterina Netchitailova

Is there fate?

Do you think everything happens for a reason?

I do.

I am not always sure how to describe it. Is it faith, a deep, personal faith in God, or something else? I struggle with the precise words, especially in the current world, where belief is often either ridiculed or accepted only under strict conditions.

For me, faith should be free of conditions. It is a personal relationship with God and with Jesus.

Faith first struck me in Moscow. I was about ten or eleven, walking with my mother to a bus stop. She was explaining something to me,  she was a passionate mathematician, while I stared at the sky and suddenly asked: “Is there more to it? Does someone watch us?”

This was before the collapse of the Soviet Union and the official return of Christian faith. I believe I was among the first to be baptised at Sergiev Posad at the age of twelve, dragging my two cousins with me.

Not long after that, my life became extremely difficult. I had to leave Russia and move to Brussels to study. Over the years I lived in Belgium, the UK and the Netherlands, often moving because of circumstances rather than choice. More than once I had to restart my life from scratch, relying on my own efforts to keep going and still enjoy simple pleasures.

At the age of twenty-seven I had my first psychosis. During that experience I saw what felt like a clear manifestation of God, a personal proof that there is more to the universe than ordinary reality.

I accept the medical diagnosis of bipolar disorder and the limitations that come with it. I have been called “not adequate” by people close to me, and it has taken enormous effort to continue and still build a life. I have a PhD, I have worked at universities in the Netherlands and the UK, I am raising my son, and I look after our cat.

Yet I still believe that everything happens for a reason. If my life had been easy, I might never have started writing, –  the work that has become my deepest passion. Without the difficulties, I would not understand or feel the same empathy for people who fall outside the label of “normal.”

Life feels like a test. We are all here for a reason.

It is hard to hold on to this belief in such a cruel modern world. I struggle with the big questions. But every day I address God and ask Him to restore my faith.

And perhaps that is enough.