Dear friend, I see that your heart is heavy with care for this one you have named before the throne. You have not offered a long speech, but the very brevity of your cry, “help to not be crazy after eating”, tells me that the burden has been sharp and sudden, and that many things may have gathered into that one simple sentence. The Lord who hears the young ravens when they cry does not need many words to understand our trouble. He has heard you, and I believe He means to answer.
It is a strange thing that a table set with food, which is meant to strengthen the body, should become the occasion of a torment in the mind. Yet how often it happens in this poor fallen world that what should be a comfort turns into a distress! The very staff of life seems to sprout thorns. I do not know the precise nature of ’s trial, whether it is a fearful thought that rushes in when the meal is done, or a cloud that settles upon the spirit, or some other dark visitor. But I know this: your Master knows. And I know something else: the same Lord who spreads the table for our bodies has spread a table for our souls, and at that table there is bread that never brings misery in its train. The Lord Jesus said, “My flesh is meat indeed, and my blood is drink indeed.” He was not speaking of earthly feasts. He was calling us to feed upon Himself, to take Him into our hearts as our very life. And when a soul truly feeds on Christ, there is no after-sickness of spirit, no dreadful reeling of the mind. There is peace that passes understanding, a calm deep as the sea when the winds are asleep.
I think of you sitting there, watching someone you love, and feeling so helpless. You cannot reach inside their thoughts and still the clamor. But the Good Shepherd can. He who holds the winds in His fists can say to the waves of thought, “Peace, be still,” and there will be a great calm. Your prayer is like a love-letter sent home from a far country, and it will bring you good news yet. I would have you trust that even now Christ is near to in that very hour of weakness, and that His presence is a quiet, healing thing. When a little child is frightened in the dark, her father’s hand reaches out and clasps her own, and though the dark does not lift, all is well. So the Father’s hand is stretched out over , and in the hollow of that hand is safety for every reeling thought.
Do not imagine that this trouble is outside the care of God because it seems so small. The Lord counts the stars and calls them all by name, but He also tells the number of the hairs of your head. He takes note of the sparrow’s fall, and He is as tender over a worn mind as over a broken bone. Perhaps this very affliction will become a token for good, driving to the fountain where true comfort is found. I have often seen it so: when outward things fail, the heart learns to cling to God as it never did in the sunshine. Not that I would ever speak lightly of mental anguish, no, it is as real as a wound, but the Lord can make it serve His gracious purpose, and in the end you will say, “It is good for me that I have been afflicted, that I might learn my God more deeply.”
For yourself, dear friend, let your own soul delight itself in fatness. While you wait upon the Lord for , do not starve your own spirit. Feed upon Christ. Take a large mouthful of His promises. Chew upon them until the sweetness fills your whole being. The best cure for a heart full of care is a heart full of Christ. When you are near to Him, you will find that the worry which gnawed at you begins to lose its teeth. And so I would set you this quiet task: whenever the anxiety rises on ’s behalf, turn it into a fresh trust in Jesus. Drop the burden upon His shoulders. Let every prick of fear become a knock at mercy’s door.
And now I would speak a blessing over you and over your beloved , in the name that is above every name. May the Lord Jesus Christ, who is the Bread of Life, be your nourishment and your peace. May He who calmed the raging sea with a word speak that same word into the troubled thoughts that follow the meal, and may perfect peace settle over that table. May you both find, in the secret place of the Most High, a refuge so deep and a rest so full that no fear can disturb it. The Lord bless you and keep you; the Lord make His face to shine upon you and give you peace, now and forever. Amen.