Here is what you asked:
So what I am asking you for is to get down, pray to God for an answer. Ask him to explain to you what really happened at this event that bothers me for three quarters of my life now.
You need to tell me what happened: this is my security so that I know you really have access to a being that possesses knowledge beyond any human being.
And you need to tell me the explanation for what happened: this is the answer I am looking for.
My Brother, the only thing I know to do is to pray for God's Mercy on someone, and I have prayed for Him to have Mercy on YOU... So that IF God's Mercy on you entails Him explaining to ME a persistent event in YOUR life, He will do so... I do not ever present God with a shopping list of things for Him to give... My unworthy lips have only remembered you to God for His Mercy which He knows best how and when to bequeath...
From my own experience, I can tell you that I have had a lot of such "back-burner" issues and questions, and that each and every one of them has been answered and resolved and fulfilled... Each person lives a very specific life, with very specific events and the issues that their lives in those events entail which involve very specific needs that either are met or put on a back burner to simmer in your soul... And it looks like you have sure got a good one slowly cooking on your back burner... I thank God that it is there for you, whether or not I am given the task of answering it for you... But more importantly, I am trying to show you the way that the Christian Faith approaches such matters, where there is no hesitation to place a pot on a back burner for a time, and to trust that God has it there for a reason, and that we do not have to know God's reason in order to live peacefully in the Faith we have been given...
There are Holy Elders in this Faith [Eastern Orthodox Christians] who can normally fairly easily discern your event and answer the issues arising from it for you, who may or may not do so according to God's Will in which they move, but they are not easy to see, because they are few and old and have many to guide and limited time... Baptism into the Faith is normally a prerequisite, and then, if you approach them, they are still hard to get to see one on one where such a question could be presented... Most do not speak English all that much... But your intent is what is crucial, and your need, and your willingness to act on what you might learn, all of which they know as you are approaching them... Curiosity fails here - But "A heart that is broken and humbled God will not despise..."
You are asking holy ones to intercede for you...
They will not do so unless your need is great...
One's inability to stop sobbing for a few days is a good indication of need...
Lord have Mercy on the Poster known as Freodin!
Arsenios
As I have said: I am not expecting anything relevant. I have enough experience how your type of philosophy works. I know the arguments and explanations you will (and did) bring.
Of course, most of the time I have this conversation it is with evangelical types, those who proclaim a "personal relationship" with Jesus-their-best-friend. Those who like to cite the bible: "ask and you shall receive".
Interestingly, their explanations why they ask and
don't receive are almost identical to yours... there are only a limited number, and you used them all.
Basically it comes down to "...to trust that God has it there for a reason...". To have faith the stone you got is indeed a bread, even if it looks like a stone to you. And if you starve while looking at the stone, have faith that God has a reason.
I don't know why that story came to mind as I was posting to you - It does have somewhat at least in common with your event, in that it was a pretty trivial event, a toe-stub X3 (mind you!)... It stayed with me across many years... I had not ID'd it as a God sent event... Having encountered God as God at 36 years of age, it is easily now seen for what it was, which my hardness of heart in those days would not permit me to apprehend back then... Looking back with fresh insight always makes the obvious more apparent than looking forward into an unknown future where nothing is obvious...
And had I, during those atheistic years, met a guy named Arsenios, who claimed to know God, I very well, like you, might have asked him to tell me about a secret event I had, and what it meant, meaning my old toe-stubX3 and the words I so clearly 'heard' but not with my ears: "It was because you had a rotten thought, you know..." So in part, I told you that story so as to walk shoulder to shoulder with you in a common experience... It got me a toe hold, so to speak, and it would seem yours has too...
You are looking for objective proof - I do not think you will find it in another person (eg me), but who knows?
Arsenios
The one thing that keeps amazing me is the ability of humans to "clearly hear something but not with my ears"... but never something that they cannot make up for themselves.
Not to belittle your story, but what you presented here is nothing extraordinatry, nothing unexplainable. Basic psychology can give you an explanation... and that should give you pause, were it not for "faith" and "hindsight".
So, without you knowing my story (and, sorry, I won't tell you... that would quite destroy the meaning of my request, wouldn't it?) you have nothing to compare.
You get my problem?
Here you are, telling me about your stubbed toe and the "voice" telling you that it is because of "rotten thoughts" and a changed experience afterwards.
I tell you that drawing connections between unrelated events based on human (foreign or own) agency is a normal human behaviour, even if it is false, and that the recounting of experiences is subject to a personal filtering system that can make hindsight views rather unreliable.
Your faith tells you that it was "God", my faith tells me it was "human nature". Reliable answers: zero - personal satisfaction: one.
Now my story is a little different. It is of the "bushes burst into flame without burning (minus the voice effects)" kind... but that I rather thoroughly investigated potential explanations afterwards, and was able to exclude these.
And still...
you could tell me: "You just imagined this whole event. It wasn't real, it was only a hallucination."
Yes, these things happen. I accept that as a potential explanation.
But getting this as an answer, without having the means to verify it... again: reliable answers: zero.
The mercy that God has to offer to me seems to be rather empty.