When a man begins to fast, to pray, to deny himself, it is not heaven that is disturbed—but hell.
While I lived in distraction, no one troubled me. But when I knelt—then the blows began.
Thoughts like arrows. Doubts like a fog. Bodily weakness. Unexpected quarrels.
Temptations precisely where I am weakest. And I understood—it is not an attack because I am weak, but because I have begun.
The devil does not attack the dead. He attacks those who have awakened. Fasting is not a diet. Fasting is war— war against the old self.
War against the passions that bound me for years. A war in which I fall every day, yet rise again.
And every time I say “no” to sin, heaven records a victory the world does not see.
I am not afraid of temptations.
I would be afraid if they did not exist.
For where there is no struggle, there is no growth.
When there is no attack, it means the enemy has nothing to lose.
But I know he does—
because I fast,
because I pray,
because I desire
Christ more than my own comfort.
Let him strike.
Let him send thoughts.
Let him stir up storms.
I know Whom I have set out toward. And I know that after Great Friday, Pascha always comes.
—Author: Nemanja Jovanović