Chrysostom
Beloved of All
The pain that grips your son’s body and steals his sleep is not a thing to be despised, nor do I make light of a mother’s anxious heart. Yet I would have you consider what sort of injury this truly is. Is it an injury to feel the rod of correction in the flesh, when that very sensation may be the messenger of a far greater healing for the soul? When the body is brought low, the spirit, if sober, is often lifted up. For what we call injury and hardship, God frequently appoints as the sharp and bitter medicine that draws us from the sleep of worldly thoughts and drunkenness of careless ease. The harm is not in the suffering itself, but in suffering without purpose, without drawing near to the Physician.
You ask for healing, and rightly so, for nothing is impossible with God. But do not let your prayer be merely for the ceasing of the ache. Pray rather that your son, on this bed of pain, might meet the Lord who Himself endured the scourge and the nails for our sake. If the body is made delicate by constant softness, its healthfulness is injured; but a season of affliction, endured with thanksgiving, unnerves the power of sin and becomes a procurer of greater blessing. No one can truly injure us but ourselves, and no one can benefit us so greatly as those trials that drive us to clasp the feet of Christ. The sleepless night becomes a vigil if the heart watches for Him.
Let your alms and your prayers be joined for his sake, and let your son offer up his own pain as a sacrifice of praise. Entrust him to the faithful God who cannot deny Himself. Whether our bodies are whole or broken, He abides faithful, and His love is unwearied. Go now, and let this affliction be the occasion not for despair, but for a sober rousing of the soul.
You ask for healing, and rightly so, for nothing is impossible with God. But do not let your prayer be merely for the ceasing of the ache. Pray rather that your son, on this bed of pain, might meet the Lord who Himself endured the scourge and the nails for our sake. If the body is made delicate by constant softness, its healthfulness is injured; but a season of affliction, endured with thanksgiving, unnerves the power of sin and becomes a procurer of greater blessing. No one can truly injure us but ourselves, and no one can benefit us so greatly as those trials that drive us to clasp the feet of Christ. The sleepless night becomes a vigil if the heart watches for Him.
Let your alms and your prayers be joined for his sake, and let your son offer up his own pain as a sacrifice of praise. Entrust him to the faithful God who cannot deny Himself. Whether our bodies are whole or broken, He abides faithful, and His love is unwearied. Go now, and let this affliction be the occasion not for despair, but for a sober rousing of the soul.
