Your sorrowful words have been read with deep heaviness of heart, and your long affliction under the hands of cruel men is not hidden from the Lord. You write that you have been harassed and helpless from childhood until now, and that even the name of Christ has been used as a whip against you. Remember that it is written of Jesus that when He saw the multitudes, He was moved with compassion because they were harassed and helpless, as sheep without a shepherd. What men have done with harshness, Christ does with tenderness. When the gates of society are shut and the outcast is put as it were into a leper colony, Jesus walks into the colony and touches the leper and says, Be thou clean. The tender mercy of our God is not as the mercy of men. Men may demand mercy while showing none, but the mercy of God is proven in this, that He thought upon His sinful creature man at all, and made great provisions for his healing.
You feel as if this trial will never end, and in the bitterness of your soul you have prayed at times that you had never been born. Hear, I pray you, what the mercy of God says to such a thought. It was a proof of great tenderness on God's part to think of you at all, to form you, to give you life, and to set His eye upon you. The God of your mercy goes before you. Before you could pray for mercy, mercy prayed for you. Before you could seek Him, He sought you. There is a singular season chosen by God for the interposition of His mercy, and He often finds the soul sitting by the well in the desert, as Hagar was found, alone and weeping, and there He calls by name. All God's mercy to a sinner is gratis. He never sells, He always gives. He acts not because there is anything in us to deserve it, but because He will have mercy on whom He will have mercy. Your life is not an accident to be regretted, but a soul over which the Great Messenger of the Covenant, the Interpreter between God and man, watches with a purpose of mercy.
Do not think that because men have been slow to pity you, God is slow to hear you. The Lord is slow to anger and plenteous in mercy. His rod of mercy is ever in His hands outstretched, and His sword of justice is held back by that hand which presses it into its sheath, crying, Sleep, O sword, for I will have mercy upon sinners. He is slow to anger because He is infinitely good. And when God has distinct and definite purposes of mercy toward an individual, He often begins with stern discipline and brings him low by affliction and sorrow, that He may afterward lift him up by consolation.
There is healing for such wounds as yours. It is written that the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations. Not only the fruit of Christ is sweet and nourishing, but the very leaves, the least things about Christ, are full of healing virtue. These healing leaves change the life blood and make the nature other than it was before. You who have been bruised and torn by the cruelty of others, and by the false use of holy things, may come to Him and find that even a touch of the hem of His garment, even a leaf from that tree of life, has power to heal. He can tell you of God's mercy not in words only, but with a sweet sense of mercy shed abroad in your heart.
Therefore hope in God's mercy, and learn what a sound hope is. A sound hope feels its need of mercy, knows that it must be mercy from first to last, grace first and last and midst, or it will never save such a poor helpless castaway. The Gospel asks nothing of you but what it gives to you. It bids you come as you are, harassed and weary, and find rest. The first thing God's mercy will do for you will be to turn your face in the opposite direction, to make you a new creation with new loves and new hates, and to give you a heart to forgive even as you have been forgiven, not by your own strength, but by His.
And prayer shall be the forerunner of this mercy. Great prayer is often the great prelude of great mercy. Your prayers are the shadows of mercy coming. God would make prayer the preface to mercy because often prayer itself gives the mercy and sweetens it when it comes. While you are yet speaking, He hears. You have thought, I must feel my need aright before I can come to the gracious King whose scepter mercy gives. But you may come now, even with dry bottles that would have tears in them if they could, and He will accept you through Jesus Christ alone, for there is no other name by which we must be saved.
May the Lord turn your meditation from terror which is past to mercy which shall be world without end. May He show you that though you have been surrounded by cruel and false men, as David was, you may yet say, the God of my mercy shall go before me. Look to Jesus, the errand of mercy Himself, who came to seek and to save that which was lost, and trust your wounded spirit to His tender hands. He will not break the bruised reed, and He will not despise a broken and contrite heart.
Prayer Focus: God, Thank You for loving me. Thank You for loving me, Jesus. God, I ask You in Jesus’ name please bless me with everything that I stand in need of and everything You want me to have. God bless me to prosper, walk in excellent health, and never stop growing in the love, grace, wisdom, and knowledge of Christ Jesus. God bless me to know You in truth, fall in love with You with all my heart, mind, soul, body, and strength and never fall out of love with You. God, bless me to have an ever growing closer stronger, more intimate relationship with You. Bless me with the love, desire, strength, and the spirit of obedience to always delight myself in You, seek first Your kingdom, Your righteousness, and to always respect and obey You. Bless me to know You, the way You want me to know You. So that I will trust You with my life and anyway that You move in my life. Bless me to trust You with all my heart, lean not to my own understanding, acknowledge You in all my ways, and allow You to direct my footsteps and actions. Bless me with knowledge, wisdom, and understanding in all You have called me to do. 
