Peace

But if you are not at peace, if there is unrest in your soul, that means that you are not with Him, that “legion” has overtaken you [Mark 5:9]. The loss of peace always seems justifiable enough: either some person or another has done something against you, or some sort of event has disturbed your soul. Yet you know that it ought not be disturbed, that this is a grave sin on your part that has distanced you from the Savior. There is a stone weighing down your heart, a dark hand constricts it, you are running about day and night, and a demon keeps whispering and repeating angry words of resentment and annoyance, and you are in captivity: you do not want this and yet you can’t be freed from it. Oh, how unhappy is the one possessed by a demon! However right you may be in your petty justice, nonetheless this possession, this malice, exposes you. You have rejected, you have lost the peace of Christ: it is Christ you have rejected. Set about acquiring peace through struggle with yourself, through repentance, through tears of the heart. Ask forgiveness of God, of the one against whom you have borne malice, and of your guardian angel. As long as you have no peace, then you yourself аre perishing and you are dragging others with you into perdition.  S. Bulgakov