Encouragement

In my prior life as a protestant I sinned a lot. I mean really huge gross horrific sins. My sins were so great that even the pagan culure around us would have been appaled by some of them. But I enjoyed them. I committed them boldy. After all, Martin Luther said, "Sin boldly" , and besides that as a Calvinist, I believed that my behavior did not matter at all, that God had decided long before He created anything, who was going to Hell and who was going to Heaven.

But now I am Orthodox. Now I see my past sins and loathe them. I want to be free of even the memory of them. But even though I hate them they are aways near me, inside my mind, waiting to atack me. When I am awake they try to sneak in, but I take refuge in the Theotokos, the Trisagion, and in the Jesus Prayer. When the memories of evil deeds plague my dreams I can not pray for I am asleep, but rising quickly I can pray in the morning. (I understand why monks rise at midnight to pray.) So, in those ways I push back against the wickedness. But the fight does not seem to let up. They are always lurking, waiting for an idle minute when they can come charging back into my mind. Lately, I have wondered if I am alone in this struggle, this war against the memories of sins long ago absolved. I've asked myself, "Am I the only one?"

But just now on Huw's blog (Thanks, Huw.) I saw in his "Patristic Roulette" feature these words by St. Anthony the Great:

"Guard yourself, that your mind be not fouled with the memory of former sins, and that the memory of them be not renewed within you."

He didn't say the fight would get easier, but at least now I know others have fought, and are fighting this battle, too.

St. Anthony, you who overcame, pray for us that we will overcome, too.