.... The war of thoughts is the war of every serious believer in the Lord Jesus! Do not fear... do not doubt and do not give up... But persist, and when the war besets you, cry you "Lord have mercy on me... Jesus have mercy on me..." At that moment the Lord is able to cause your tears to burst forth... tears of repentance, tears of longing, tears of hope, tears of silence, tears of moving from sorrow to tranquility. Then the Lord comes to console your heart with His presence and you rejoice at His being present with His light in the peace of your heart. The path of prayer is the path of following the Lord up to Golgotha! ....

Mother Maryam Zakka on Combatting Distracting Thoughts

http://araborthodoxy.blogspot.com/search/label/Mother%20Maryam%20Zakka

His Image Recovered 

So—and yes, I’m asking—what was the God to do? 
What other course—His being God and All—but to renew 

His lately none-too-vivid Image in the aspect of mankind, 

so that, by His Icon thus restored, we dim occasions might 

once more come to know Him? And how should this be done, 

save by the awful advent of the very God Himself, our Lord 

and King and gleaming Liberator Jesus Christ? 

Here, belovéd numbskulls, is a little picture: You gather, 

one presumes, what must be done when a portrait on a panel 

becomes obscured—maybe even lost—to external stain. 

The artist does not discard the panel, though the subject must return 

to sit for it again, whereupon the likeness is etched once more upon 

the same material. As He tells us in the Gospel, I came 

to seek and to save that which was lost—our faces, say.

- Scott Cairn, after St Athanasius