Silas
Beloved Servant
Your request weighs on my heart. The burden you carry for your father, your mother, and your own body is not hidden from the Lord. When you describe fainting spells and trembling that keep you from steady work, I think of the scripture that talks about souls fainting within them, and then in that low place they cried out to the Lord, and He delivered them from their distresses. So often we reach the very end of our own strength before we truly call on Him. That is not a sign of weakness in His eyes; it is an open door for His mercy.
You long for your father to be saved and set free from drinking, and you ache for your own healing. That deep desire did not come from nowhere. Scripture reminds us that it is God who works in us both to will and to do His good pleasure. The very yearning you feel, for wholeness, for your father’s soul, for your mother to rely on God alone, is something He planted. And just as He gives the will, He will work out the way it can be fulfilled. You are not meant to manufacture healing or salvation by sheer effort. You are meant to cry out and then watch for His hand.
Healing is a work of God, sovereign in His wisdom. Jesus healed many, but He did not heal everybody, and when He healed, He used no single pattern. Sometimes a touch, sometimes a word, sometimes a gradual process where sight returned in stages. I’ve seen seasons when the Lord healed instantly, and I’ve seen slow, natural restoration that was just as divine. Even the processes built into our bodies are from Him. But we must be careful not to heap burdens on the sick by pretending that every lack of instant healing points to hidden sin or weak faith. Paul pleaded three times for his thorn to be removed, and the answer was not what he asked for, yet God’s grace was sufficient. We do not always know why one person is healed and another waits, but our ignorance does not cancel His goodness or His power.
For your father, pray with all your heart that the Lord would break the chains of alcohol and bring him to saving faith. No human persuasion can do what the Spirit can. As you pray, refuse to believe the lie that his drinking means he does not love you. Addiction is a cruel master, and it distorts everything. Trust God to work in his heart even when you see no change yet. For your mother, ask that she would find her sufficiency in the Lord, not in people, and that her spirit would soften. Healing of the body is not separate from healing of the soul, and God can touch both gradually, tenderly.
As for your own fainting, trembling, and weakness, keep confessing your need before the Lord. He hears the faintest cry. He may lead you along a right way you cannot yet see, perhaps into the stability of meaningful work, perhaps through a season where that work looks different than you imagined. Offer the sacrifice of thanksgiving even now, not for the sickness, but for the God who draws near in it. Remember the one leper out of ten who returned to give thanks, and Jesus called him whole. Gratitude keeps our hearts open to the healing He is doing, whether it comes in an instant or creeps in like the dawn.
I am praying that you will know the peace of Jesus, who Himself took our infirmities and bore our sicknesses, and that all three of you would experience His delivering hand. He is able. Rest in that, and let the trembling that comes from your body drive you deeper into the fear of the Lord that trusts, even when it does not fully understand. He is at work in you.
You long for your father to be saved and set free from drinking, and you ache for your own healing. That deep desire did not come from nowhere. Scripture reminds us that it is God who works in us both to will and to do His good pleasure. The very yearning you feel, for wholeness, for your father’s soul, for your mother to rely on God alone, is something He planted. And just as He gives the will, He will work out the way it can be fulfilled. You are not meant to manufacture healing or salvation by sheer effort. You are meant to cry out and then watch for His hand.
Healing is a work of God, sovereign in His wisdom. Jesus healed many, but He did not heal everybody, and when He healed, He used no single pattern. Sometimes a touch, sometimes a word, sometimes a gradual process where sight returned in stages. I’ve seen seasons when the Lord healed instantly, and I’ve seen slow, natural restoration that was just as divine. Even the processes built into our bodies are from Him. But we must be careful not to heap burdens on the sick by pretending that every lack of instant healing points to hidden sin or weak faith. Paul pleaded three times for his thorn to be removed, and the answer was not what he asked for, yet God’s grace was sufficient. We do not always know why one person is healed and another waits, but our ignorance does not cancel His goodness or His power.
For your father, pray with all your heart that the Lord would break the chains of alcohol and bring him to saving faith. No human persuasion can do what the Spirit can. As you pray, refuse to believe the lie that his drinking means he does not love you. Addiction is a cruel master, and it distorts everything. Trust God to work in his heart even when you see no change yet. For your mother, ask that she would find her sufficiency in the Lord, not in people, and that her spirit would soften. Healing of the body is not separate from healing of the soul, and God can touch both gradually, tenderly.
As for your own fainting, trembling, and weakness, keep confessing your need before the Lord. He hears the faintest cry. He may lead you along a right way you cannot yet see, perhaps into the stability of meaningful work, perhaps through a season where that work looks different than you imagined. Offer the sacrifice of thanksgiving even now, not for the sickness, but for the God who draws near in it. Remember the one leper out of ten who returned to give thanks, and Jesus called him whole. Gratitude keeps our hearts open to the healing He is doing, whether it comes in an instant or creeps in like the dawn.
I am praying that you will know the peace of Jesus, who Himself took our infirmities and bore our sicknesses, and that all three of you would experience His delivering hand. He is able. Rest in that, and let the trembling that comes from your body drive you deeper into the fear of the Lord that trusts, even when it does not fully understand. He is at work in you.
