A Letter from the Heart

Dear ones, for a long time I did not know how to write a letter. I know that everyone is going through difficulties now… The world is experiencing shocks one after another.

2020 has been a terrible year for us. In Armenia, we had to fight not only with the covid, but also with a terrible war. For people of my generation and above, this is not the first war. But now I especially realized how valuable it is to have PEACE. My heart is filled with very different feelings, and this makes it harder for me to write to you. For a long time I wanted to be silent, if honestly now, too.

It was an ordinary morning, September 27th. The war began. This is the second war this year (not this year, but last year, sorry, it seems I’m stuck in 2020). In the beginning, I believed and hoped that everything would be over soon, but alas, the rulers of this world had other plans. The war lasted 44 days… I don’t want to talk about the war, it hurts me a lot, if someone is interested in more information, write to me and we can talk.

The only thing I want to say is that we have more than 5,000 dead, more than 10,000 seriously injured, hundreds of missing, hundreds of prisoners of war who were not returned even after Armenia signed the surrender document. About 90 thousand people turned out to be refugees, lost their homes, property… We have lost a very large part of our homeland, the land that historically always belonged to the Armenians, on which churches were built with a very long history. My soul ached so much during the war that I didn’t even give much importance to the fact that during this time I caught the coronavirus. Each family had brothers, fathers, friends who went to defend our land. Sorry to share all of this, I just hope you understand the scale of the impact of the war on our lives. It is difficult, and it will be difficult for a long time. It feels like I hear the groan of my land all the time. It hurts me. I didn’t celebrate my birthday in December. New Year was not celebrated in Armenia this year. There were no Christmas trees. There were no fireworks. After all, almost in every district there are families in which a mother grieves for son, a wife for her husband, children for the father. I hate war … Once again, I faced with a situation in which I was left with a whole list of questions, in which my faith passed another test … Is God good? Is He good when your prayers go unanswered, is He good when there is so much injustice?

Today I will say: Yes, He is good … I write through tears, I write through pain, but one of the most important lessons that I have learned is to humble myself and accept that I do not understand anything …

Imagine, even in the most dire situations, there is something to thank God for. In my case, there are many, maybe because I have a grateful heart, or God really loves me… all my brothers returned alive from the war. I prayed for each of them. This is what my cousin says later: “ I didn’t want to tell you where I am, so you wouldn’t worry about me. In the midst of the war, we were taken to one of the hottest spots. There were 28 of us. Only 8 returned alive. At night, with our military vehicles, we arrived at a certain place in order to join the battle in the morning. Part of the group lay down on the right side of the cars, and the other part and I along with them on the left side. Suddenly I was awakened by the voice of a friend who had come for me. He was on the right side. He asked me to go with him to be there together. I went. Several hours later, Turkish drones of the Azerbaijani army began to bomb us. All the guys who were on the left side died … I still can’t believe that I survived”.

I listened to him and cried, but I was sincerely grateful, and now I am grateful to God that He survived, but I could not rejoice, because others died ………

Another reason I’m grateful to God is one of my friends.

In social networks, the enemy military began to distribute videos in which they humiliated Armenian prisoners of war. In one of these videos, I accidentally recognized my friend. He was a participant in one of the Gateway camps. It was very painful for me to see him. But with all my heart, I, and I’m sure many others too, began to pray for him. Pretend he is one of the few prisoners who were brought back home. I am grateful to God with all my heart, but I can’t rejoice because 100 other guys are still being tortured in captivity.

Another reason for which I especially want to thank God is those few friends who were not afraid of my pain, my wounded and offended heart, my emotions, and were there with me almost every day. They did not condemn for anger, for pain, they just were there. It was very valuable. I will never forget. Someday I will write their names in one of my books. I want to include in this list and, of course, thank God also for those who did not write to me personally, but who silently worried about us and prayed for us. You have no idea how much I value each of you. Believe me, more than before.

If you have a desire to pray for us, then I very much ask you that you continue to pray for the PEACE, since this is a strange agreement and no one knows what awaits us in the future.

Thank you once again and God bless You

Alisa Sarhatyan