The Disciple’s First Question — The Struggle of the Heart with Meekness
Abba,
there are days when meekness feels like defeat.
The Fathers say not to avenge, not to judge, to bear wrongs in silence. But when someone speaks over me, ignores me, or twists my words, something deep erupts. I burn to set things right. I want to defend myself, to make them see.
Then the heart turns restless. I replay every moment. I imagine what I could have said. I dress the wound with pride and call it justice.
It’s not only anger: it’s shame. To be unseen, unwanted, or dismissed cuts deep. I start to believe my patience is cowardice, that my silence is weakness. And yet when I lash back, I feel sick.
The Fathers call meekness strength, but mine feels like paralysis. I say nothing, but inside I argue a thousand times. I tell myself I am following Christ, but my heart is still full of noise.
Abba, how does one bear contempt without hardening? How can I stay silent and not disappear?
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The Elder’s Response — The Strength of the Lamb
Child,
this is the narrowest path.
You are not weak for feeling the wound. The weak are those who let anger rule them. The strong are those who stand in silence until the fire burns itself clean.
Do not mistake meekness for numbness. It is pain endured without hatred.
When you are wronged, do not rush to justify yourself. Let God justify you. St. Isaac said that the meek are like kings who have laid down their crowns; no insult can take from them what they have already given away.
Each humiliation is a mirror. It shows you what still clings to pride. Thank God for it.
Say nothing. Pray, “Lord, have mercy on us both.” That is enough.
You want to defend yourself? Remember Christ before Pilate. He could have spoken one word and ended it, but He chose silence. Not because He was powerless, but because He was free.
True meekness is not being trampled; it is refusing to trample in return.
When rage rises, hold your tongue and breathe the Name. That is your victory. The battle is not against the other; it is against the storm within.
Endure it.
Say little.
Forgive quickly.
The heart that does this becomes unbreakable.
The Disciple’s Second Question — Gazing into the Abyss and the Loss of Identity
Abba,
I no longer know who I am.
The sense of righteousness I once held,
the belief that I was good, or at least trying, has fallen away. I see now how much of it was self-esteem disguised as virtue, an image I built to quiet the fear of being nothing.
When that image shattered, something inside me went silent. Prayer feels like breath against a stone wall. I keep saying the words, but they echo back empty.
I thought repentance would make me more aware of God. Instead, it feels as though He has withdrawn. I walk in darkness, not because I doubt Him, but because I cannot find any part of myself that seems real.
I used to draw strength from the thought that I was serving Him. Now I can no longer tell if that was love or self-deception. Even the desire to be holy seems mixed with pride.
When this illusion of goodness falls away, what is left? I feel naked before an abyss. The absence of God presses like weight on my chest. I begin to wonder if I have gone too far inward, if the silence has swallowed me whole.
At times I fear I am losing my mind. The solitude, the loss of identity, the emptiness: it feels like death before dying.
How does one hold on to what is real when everything familiar dissolves?
How does one keep from falling when the ground itself seems gone?
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The Elder’s Response — Flying Over the Abyss and the Shadow of God’s Hand
Child,
you are not falling, you are being unmade.
The false self is dying, and the soul trembles because she does not yet know how to live without her masks. The loss you feel is not madness; it is the beginning of truth.
Do not be afraid of the abyss. It is not your enemy. It is the depth of your own poverty revealed before the face of God.
St. Isaac said that when a man sees his sins “as the sand of the sea,” grace has already begun its work. The sight of one’s corruption is the dawn of purity. The light is hidden now, but it is there, deep beneath the collapse of self.
You say you no longer feel righteous. Good. You are closer to righteousness now than when you thought yourself good. True virtue is born only when the soul despairs of herself.
Psalm 37 gives you the language of this moment:
“My guilt towers higher than my head;
it is a weight too heavy to bear.
My heart throbs, my strength is spent;
the very light has gone from my eyes.”
Even the Psalmist, crushed by guilt and loneliness, ends with a whisper:
“O Lord, do not forsake me…
Make haste and come to my help, O Lord, my Savior.”
That whisper is faith. Not the faith of feeling, but of survival. The one who still calls upon God in darkness already flies above the abyss.
Archimandrite Zacharias says that when the soul stands at the edge of nothingness, she must learn to “fly over the abyss” by trust alone; not by wings of thought, but by surrender. You cannot reason your way across. You can only step into the emptiness and let grace bear you.
Do not look for yourself there. Look for Him. You will not find Him as you expect; no warmth, no image, only silence. But in that silence, He holds you more surely than ever.
The seeming absence of God is His most intimate presence, the fire that burns away every illusion until only love remains.
Stay still before the abyss.
Do not turn back toward the image of who you were.
Do not try to rebuild yourself.
Simply say, “I am nothing, yet Thou art.”
That is enough. That prayer builds wings.
When the time comes, you will see that what you thought was a fall was flight and the darkness beneath you was the shadow of His hand.
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