Orthodox Parables and Stories: Miracle of the Panagia Varnakova

It was late in the afternoon and it was getting dark. The time was approaching when the Monastery would close its gates when the last pilgrim came in a hurry.

A man from the neighboring town. After worshiping, full of emotion, he said:

 
"I have great gratitude to Our Lady. She healed me twice and saved me."

Then he recounted his truly moving case:

"I worked as a bartender in a hotel and unfortunately I got used to drinking. For 17 years I was constantly drunk!

Eventually my alcohol caused a liver transplant. I was taken to the hospital in a bad condition. Death was near!

Then, in the midst of this difficulty that I was living and in danger, because the addiction did not allow me to stop, I remembered the Virgin Mary, whom I had worshiped so many times in Varnakova and I said these words simply but with my heart:

"My Lady, please, free me from the passion of drinking and save me."

And she heard me immediately. It strengthened my will and when I faced the reactions of the body from the lack of drink, I said to my heart, which had a crazy pulse:

"If you want, quit! At least I'm not going to die drunk!

In fact, my heart soon calmed down. Immediately after that came the final gift: a complete aversion to drink. While others struggle for a long time to detoxify.
And the second gift? The damaged liver was completely healed! Now I am free and healthy. How can I not thank her?"

When he later learned that some of the Virgin's wonders would be written in a book, he asked her to write a message specifically to young people, as a conclusion to his bitter experience:

The moments of joy, when you are free from addictions and live right as God wants, are infinitely more than the few and false joys that the life of sin gives, my friends.

From the book: "MIRACLES OF PANAGIAS
PANAGIA VARNAKOVA"