I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances.Philippians 4:11
The straight jackets were torturous for Anna Chertokova. She hated having her hands covered and tied close to her body. To the attendants, she was nothing more than an animal, not worthy of consideration.
Anna spent ten years in an insane asylum in Russia. She was not even slightly insane. A judge had sent her there because she was a Christian. Her refusal to deny Christ was, to the judge, crazy.
Surrounded by the mentally ill, Anna sometimes questioned her own sanity. In the long nights she would cry out to God in her mind, even as those around her cried out in their anger or terror. Yet she never became angry. The faith that she refused to deny in court, she also refused to deny in the asylum. To those who were able to understand, Anna even tried to be a witness and example of Christ’s love.
“I greet you all with love in our Lord Jesus Christ,” Anna wrote from inside the asylum. “I pray to God that he will make us beautiful and perfect in Christ and that he will take charge of all our affairs. I firmly believe that God who created everybody’s heart and who examines all the affairs of mortal men will judge my dispute with the idolatry of atheism and will execute his judgement and justice.”
Christians may sometimes find themselves in crazy situations that try their patience and test their character. A difficult living arrangement. Confounding office politics. A rebellious child. Can we remain confident in God, no matter our circumstances? We can if we know the secret of contentment. The Bible teaches us that our inner sense of contentment must rule when facing outward circumstances. Our attitude takes its cues from God, not our situation. Otherwise, we risk becoming as confused as our circumstances. Take a lesson from Anna. Instead, ask God to teach you the secret of being content despite your circumstances.
You can read more through The Voice of the Martyrs’ app available on iTunes (https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/prayer-calendar/id432550884?mt=8) or Google Play (https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.persecution.prayercalendarhd)
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More Reading: Anna Vasilievna Chertkova
Anna Chertkova was born on December 26, 1927, in Alma-Ata, Kazakhstan. She actively attended an unregistered Baptist church from an early age. In the 1970’s, she began teaching and advocating for religion throughout the Soviet Union.
Authorities declared her criminally insane and arrested her in August 1973. Her trial began on February 12, 1974, under article 170-1 Kazakh Criminal Code (circulation of deliberately false concoctions, slandering the Soviet State, and social order). She was sentenced to compulsory treatment and indefinite confinement in the Tashkent Special Psychiatric Hospital, which was described by a patient as a “prison mad-house for murderers.” According to the testimony of another prisoner, the staff was abusive and hostile, especially to Chertkova. For refusing to abandon her faith, they frequently subjected her to neuroleptic drugs which caused fever and paralysis and locked her in cells with “zealous atheist criminals.” Despite her tribulation, she was able to write a letter to her family during her ninth year in the hospital stating she would continue to entrust herself to God’s care and believe in His plan.
However, Chertkova’s plight did not go unnoticed. In 1985, more than 5,200 Irish Christians approached the Soviet Embassy in Dublin with a petition to reexamine her case. The petition was rejected outside the embassy’s gates and “Mr. Sergei Davidov, Second Secretary at the Embassy, admitted that in the Soviet Union the practice of the Christian faith could be seen as abnormal.” In the summer of 1987, several campaigns on her behalf were underway in Western countries, including a vigil in Birmingham, England, calling for her release.
In 1986, authorities transferred Chertkova to the Special Psychiatric Hospital in Kazan. She left the hospital in Tashkent on January 31 and arrived in Kazan on February 8 in handcuffs, despite suffering from body tremors. She was finally freed on December 1, 1987. At her release from the hospital, Chertkova was age 59 and the longest-serving prisoner at over fourteen years.
Officials took her to her niece’s house in Alma-Ata. Anna Chertkova called her sister in West Germany on December 3, 1987, asking her to thank everyone who prayed and petitioned for her release and adding Christmas greetings. Because her freedom seemed precarious in the Soviet Union, Chertkova desired to join her sister, and the two began the lengthy immigration process.
More information about Anna Chertkova can be found in the Keston Center for Religion, Politics, and Society.
This finding aid is currently incomplete. Please contact the Michael Bourdeaux Research Center for more information.
Source: https://www.baylor.edu/genderstudies/index.php?id=963159
