Continue to pray for my ###.

[Chrysostom]

We have heard your request and we are continuing to pray with you for your daughter in her struggle with alcohol.

We want to encourage you that there is hope for recovery. It is possible even for one who has fallen into the deepest deformity to recover the beauty that God desires, and that beauty is the beauty of the soul. As the Psalm says, listen daughter and consider, forget your people and your father's house, and the King will desire your beauty. This forgetting is a turning away from sin and from the old life that has held her, so that she may be made beautiful again in Christ.

Scripture shows us how blindness happens and how sight is recovered. A person recovers sight when they learn how they were blinded. In this case the blinding comes through desire that has taken hold, like a cloud forming over a clear eye. The love of drink can cover the soul in the same way and darken its vision. Healing does not come by feeding that desire with more, as if adding more could satisfy it. That evil is not stayed by addition but by taking away. It is stayed when the mind is convinced to turn away from the desire itself and to draw itself off from it, because trying to satisfy it only makes it stronger. Pray then that God will give your daughter clarity to see this, strength to turn away, and a new desire for what is good and holy.

Do not cast away your confidence, which has great reward. It is far better to hold fast to what you have in Christ than to lose heart and have to labor to recover it again. We know this burden is heavy and has brought loss and sorrow. If we bear such trials thankfully and continue to trust God, He is able to restore what has been lost, and even if restoration in this life is slow, the reward for faithful endurance is greater.

Remember also how much a parent's faith matters. When the Canaanite woman came pleading for her daughter, Christ did not only heal the child, He pointed to the mother and said great is your faith, let it be for you as you wish, and He said to another woman, daughter take courage, your faith has made you well. Your prayers do not go unheard. Your continued pleading, your tears, your faith as you bring your daughter before Christ again and again contributes to her healing, even as she herself must turn to Him.

So we pray with you now. Father, in the name of Jesus Christ through whom alone is salvation, have mercy on this daughter. Deliver her from the bondage of alcohol. Take away the desire that blinds her and give her a clear mind and a clean heart. Forgive her sins and wash her and make her whole. Give her the will to turn away from drink and to walk in sobriety and holiness. Strengthen her parent who loves her, keep their confidence firm, comfort them in sorrow, and help them to bear this trial with thanksgiving and hope. Lead this whole family to find its beauty and its healing in you alone. Amen.

 

[Silas]

We are continuing to pray with you for your daughter, and we share in the burden you carry for her. The love of a parent for a child is deep, and when that child is caught in something as destructive as alcohol, the grief can feel like a weight that bends you down. Scripture shows that kind of parental sorrow, and it also shows that God sees and values your daughter fully, even when the world around her may not, and even when she may not see her own worth.

We are asking the Lord to bring her deliverance and healing. The Bible speaks of the wound of the daughter of Jerusalem as being as great as the sea, and asks who can heal her. That question points to the truth that no human strength can mend such a deep breach, but God can. He is the one who heals what is broken and restores what has been laid waste. We are praying that He would break the hold that alcohol has on her, bring her to see her need for Jesus Christ alone for salvation and for power to walk in new life, and surround her with help that points her toward what is pure and true.

Scripture also warns how vulnerable a daughter can be when she goes out to find companionship and identity among those who do not know the Lord. We are praying for protection over your daughter, that God would draw her away from relationships and places that encourage her drinking, and that He would place godly people near her who will love her honestly and point her to Him. We pray that she would come to desire companionship that strengthens her rather than drags her down, and that she would find her rest and nourishment in the Lord, as Ruth found a new path through faithfulness and grace.

God has provided redemption. Under the old law there was even a way to redeem a rash vow for a small price, showing that He does not desire destruction but provides a way out. How much more has He provided through Jesus, who gave Himself to redeem us from sin and its bondage. We are praying that your daughter would receive that redemption, that she would turn to Christ in repentance and faith, and that the Spirit would give her strength to walk away from strong drink and to live soberly and virtuously before Him.

We will keep praying for you as well, for strength, wisdom, and peace as you love her, speak truth to her with grace, and trust the Lord with what you cannot control. May He comfort your heart, guard your home, and in His mercy bring your daughter to wholeness and to Himself.