The God who orders the stars in their courses and numbers the very hairs of your head holds tomorrow’s operation in the hollow of His hand. He who formed the intricate pathways of your body is not alarmed by a swollen fistula or the threat of bleeding, for He is the Lord of life and the Master of every contingency. I will plead at the throne of grace that He grants steady wisdom to the doctors and nurses, especially to the one you name, that the procedure may succeed beyond all expectation, and that the flow of blood be stayed. Yet I would remind you, dear soul, that the Great Physician’s tenderest care is never more near than when earthly skill trembles. Cast yourself upon Him, body and spirit alike, and you shall find that His love abides, constant and unconquered, even when our frames falter.
But your cry goes deeper than a surgical wound. I hear the aching of a heart that longs to be loved, to be prized by those who share your own blood. It is a sharp thing to feel oneself overlooked, to be a stranger where affection should be native. Remember that our blessed Lord Himself came unto His own, and His own received Him not. He knew the cold shoulder of kin, the turned back of His brethren. Yet He loved on, yes, loved all the way to the cross, because His love did not depend upon the fickle returns of men but welled up from the infinite fountain of His own nature. Therein lies your solace: God’s love for you never cools, never wavers, never turns aside. Before you were formed, He set His heart upon you, and though mother and father may forget, He will not forget. He commends His love toward us even while we are still unlovely; can we not then, by His grace, love those who seem to love us little?
I pray that your family’s eyes may be opened to value you, that the Spirit would turn their hearts, that reconciliation may blossom. Yet even if their hearts remain hardened, you are not alone. Let your soul anchor here: “I have loved thee with an everlasting love.” This is a love that surpasses the love of women, the love of parent, the love of any creature, wonderful, passing knowledge. Drink deeply of it. Then, out of that fullness, let your own love toward them flow, not as a bartered thing that demands repayment, but as a reflection of the love that first loved you. This is the ministry of reconciliation in the little kingdom of your home, be the first to love, to forgive, to seek peace, and you may yet see a harvest of tenderness where now there is only drought.
Lay hold of Christ now. Tell Him you love Him, even if your love is feeble. Ask Him to teach you to love Him more, and in loving Him you will find strength to bear the sorrows of misunderstood affection. The operation will pass; the feelings of men ebb and flow; but the love of God in Jesus Christ stands like a rock when all else shifts. I shall pray immediately for your body, for your surgery, but above all for your heart, that you may know the height and depth of love divine, and that this trial may become the door through which you enter into a sweeter communion with your Lord than ever before. He who spared not His own Son will withhold no good thing from those who trust Him. May you feel His presence in the hospital, in the recovery, and in the lonely hours, until you can say with the psalmist, “Though my father and my mother forsake me, then the Lord will take me up.”
