Mr. Jankic gave me the book Patriarch and Prophets. As I started to read this great book, I was fascinated to learn about the fall of Lucifer and how sin came into the world. These truths were new to me and I was eager to share them with others.

One weekend I went out to a café to meet a group of my friends. As I was walking, I met Zeljko my friend.

He greeted me, “Hello Gorane,” and I turned to him and said, “Hello Lucifer.”

He paused and looked at me, then asked, “What’s wrong with you?”

I responded, “Nothing, I just read something that impressed me very much.”

Zeljko then asked me, “Why did you call me Lucifer?”

I embraced him and told him, “Let me explain to you what I was reading about these days.”

We spent that evening together and I shared with him who is Lucifer, how he fell, and how sin entered our world. We were up late that night, and Zeljko told me that he would like to continue talking about the subject. So, we agreed to meet the next evening and continue our discussion. As a result of these talks, our friendship deepened and we became inseparable friends. Zeljko and I had some blessed times reading the Bible together or discussing our personal Bible study.

Several months after finishing high school, I began working for the government. In the next four and a half years, some overwhelming and daunting experiences happened in my life.

My mother Aleksia was born on March 30, 1948. She had a difficult life during her childhood which was accompanied by poverty, hunger, and worry about survival. When she was about ten years old, her family moved from Bosnia to Srem. After just 4 months she lost her father, and her mother was left alone with seven children, barely able to make ends meet. After graduating from high school, Mom got married to Peter, my dad. They had a daughter named Milica and eight years later I was born. When I was one year old, my parents divorced and my mom moved back to live with her mother.

In that small house I spent part of my childhood until my mother remarried and moved to live with her new husband in the same village. My stepfather was like a real father to me. Although he had four adult children, he treated me like his own son.

The atmosphere in our home was not positive. My stepbrothers, Zdravko and Jelenko, were unhappy that their father remarried after their mother had been killed in an accident. They didn’t speak to my mother—their stepmother.

My mother was afraid of Jelenko, the younger stepbrother, since he was moody and negative most of the time. For a while we all lived in the same house, but after some years, my stepbrothers got married and moved away. Now my mom, my stepdad and I could live in peace.

One day, while I was at work, Jelenko, came to our home and took a picture of my mom in the backyard. My mother was afraid and ran into the house to look for my stepfather. Jelenko followed her and told her:

“Now that I took a picture of you, I will show it to a witch so she can confirm why I have a bad marriage and all the bad things are happening in my life.” As he was leaving, he added, “If you are the one doing all this evil, I will remove you from the face of the earth in one month.”

The people in Serbia were superstitious and when things were not going well for them, they believed that someone had put a spell on them.

The next day, my poor mother was so anxious from what Jelenko told her that she became sick and stayed in bed for ten days. When I returned from work, I asked her, “Mom, how are you? Is anything hurting you? Let’s go to the doctor.” My mom just said. “I’m okay. I am feeling better. It’s nothing serious.” She did not tell me the whole story about what Jelenko had told her.

Often when I came home from work, I’d go to my room and take a nap. I noticed that my mother would come and just sit there in deep thought. When she saw I was waking up, she quickly went out. I would ask her, “Mom, do you need anything?” She replied, “No, son.” I noticed something was bothering my mom, but I did not know what it was or how to help her.

It was autumn and we had so many rainy days that we could not pick all our corn. At last we had our first sunny day on the Sabbath. My parents got up early to go to the farm and pick corn. They told me to come as soon I eat breakfast. By then I was keeping the Sabbath when it was convenient for me. Although I didn’t want to go to work and transgress the Sabbath, I didn’t have the courage to tell “no” to my parents.

So, on that Sabbath, October 18, 1997, I went to the farm. As I was picking the corn, my mom, stepdad and neighbor were 200 feet ahead of me when suddenly I heard the neighbor screaming, and then she stopped. For a moment, I thought an animal had jumped out of the corn and she was scared. But she came to me teary-eyed and said, “Your mother is not doing well.”

I ran to the spot where my neighbor was and saw my mother lying motionless on the ground; her lips and nails were blue. My stepfather said he did CPR on her, but without success. I picked up my mom and put her to lay on some corn husks. Then I ran quickly to the village to find a neighbor with a car to drive her to the hospital. As I was running, I was praying, “Lord, please don’t let my mother be dead.” After some time, I found a neighbor and we drove back to the farm. I was hoping that when I returned my mother would be sitting up, but she was still lying motionless on the ground. I carried her to the car. We drove her to the hospital where they found that she had a heart attack.

At that time, I was 19 and my mother was 50 years old. I was not ready for this heartbreaking event. It was such a shock for me to lose my dear mother so suddenly that for several days I was not accepting this as reality. A few days after the burial, my aunt told me that Jelenko, my stepbrother had threatened to take my mother’s life in thirty days. Now she had died from a heart attack before the thirty days were completed.

So why did my mother die? Sadly, she had had heart problems years before this happened. Since my stepbrother threatened her a month before, she was very stressed and anxious thinking how she would die. These negative thoughts of fear, anxiety, worry, and coupled with her heart condition, caused her early death.

I’m sorry that I found all this information too late after my mother’s death and burial. Had I known it before, I would have encouraged and comforted my mother not to fear or believe in that witchcraft Jelenko was threatening her with. There is an all-powerful God Who is stronger than the forces of evil. He would have taken care of her. She would have nothing to fear. But now it was too late. I could not turn back the clock and bring her back to life.

When my mother died, I was very sad, but the Lord comforted me with thoughts like these: “The dead know not anything” (Ecclesiastes 9:5), and she is resting and at peace. He also reminded me that one day all will be judged according to their works. The good news is that my mom was reading the books Patriarchs and Prophets, The Desire of Ages, and Acts of the Apostles. When I tried to talk to her about spiritual things, she avoided the subject. But I don’t know what was happening in her mind and heart as she read these books. Did she make peace with God at that time? I do not know, but I do know that my God had comforted me and I had peace.

“Blessed be God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies, and the God of all comfort; Who comforteth us in all our tribulation, that we may be able to comfort them which are in any trouble, by the comfort wherewith we ourselves are comforted of God” (2 Corinthians 1:3, 4).