You ask for the sound of your son’s laughter, a desire as natural as breath itself. The joy of a parent in a child’s gladness is a dim reflection of the Father’s delight in His own. Yet let me press upon you a deeper truth, lest you miss the better portion for a passing echo. There is a joy which is as milk to nourish babes, a joy which is not as meat with bones in it, for the Lord adds no sorrow to it. The happiness you crave for your boy must come from the hand that made him. He is a home for your desolation, raiment for your nakedness, food for your hunger, light for your darkness, liberty for your bondage, joy for your despair. The more you know of Christ and the more you hear about Him, the more shall you feel sure that He is yours and the more shall you abide in Him, trust in Him and find joy and peace through believing in Him.
You say, "Make him healthy and happy." A right and allowable petition indeed. Yet note well what the Spirit teaches: Be importunate, be eager, be earnest not for the child's life, that you must leave with God. Not for the child's health, that, also, you may make a secondary matter, but for the child's soul. If God grants it shall be so, you will need no greater joy than to see him walk in truth. That which comes by the gate of prayer comes into the house with music and rallying. The former anguish of your prayer will only increase the sweetness of the answer.
Consider this also: You must have joy in the Lord, Brothers and Sisters, if you are to be strong in the Lord. The God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, that you may abound in hope, through the power of the Holy Spirit. The laughter you long to hear, that bubbling mirth, is but the surface ripple of a deeper current. If you understand my text and put it into practice, you possess the quintessence of happiness, the essential oil of joy. He that has joy in his children may bury that joy in the grave, but he that has joy in the Lord drinks from a well that never runs dry.
Now, concerning his health. The healing power of my Master is such that if you have backslidden ever so far, yet He says, "Return! Return!" The leaves of the tree of life are for the healing of the nations. Spiritually, the pardoned one shall not need to say, "I am sick," because his soul diseases then receive a healing medicine. Pardon and healing are one. That same hand which forgives sin restores the frame. Why should you then say, "I am sick"? If a man could be quite sure he would be in perfect health tomorrow, he would say little about the sickness of an hour. We are on our way to eternal health. The Lord has begun to heal us, and the healing virtue which His grace has infused into us will work us health and cure till we shall be without spot or wrinkle.
You value the minister that broke your heart; but it is not often that we ascribe the healing to any instrumentality whatever. It is the Lord alone. Even now, as you kneel in your desolation, trust in the Savior and you shall go out with joy and be led forth with peace. Though like the barren woman you feel forgotten, more are the children of the desolate than the children of the married wife. Just after the story of the despised and rejected Savior stands this note of joy for you poor barren ones. Let me invite you then to come to the cross. Perhaps that very cross which gave you life may give you fruitfulness.
I need the sinner’s Savior as much now as ever, for I am still a sinner. So go to Him for your son. Ask Him to pour some joy down you and then you will get more joy up from your own heart. God grant that its healing influences drop upon your household thick as leaves in Vallombrosa, till that golden age shall dawn in which your child shall be the abode of moral and physical health. With blooming health his face adorn, and change the gloomy night to morn. O you who are sick or heavy-hearted, ask to be forgiven and healing will come from the pardoning hand. God bless you.