Your cry for healing is a natural one, and affection for the suffering moves the heart. But let us consider the medicine of the soul before the remedy of the body. You stand in fear of death, as if it were the ultimate calamity. Is it not a greater sickness of soul to stand unprepared before the Judge, laden with sins we will not amend? You ask for the tumors to be removed, yet your own words betray a deeper sickness: a desperate grasping for this present life as though it were the true one. You say you know God is able to heal, but is He not also able to save? Is He not worthy to be trusted even if He ordains that this affliction should run its course? The body returns to the earth, but the soul faces an inexorable judgment. Do you demand health now, yet neglect to pursue the health that is eternal? That is to care more for the grass that withers than for the treasure laid up in heaven.
You seek my prayers, and I will pray, but I must first give you what is truly profitable. These sharp words are the cure, for a physician who abandons the sick to their delusion is no physician. The pain you feel now for your friend is a goad, a voice louder than any dancer’s call summoning you to the marketplace of vanity. Does this affliction not teach you where your true hope must lie? When the body fails, the appetite falters, and the agony presses in, where is the honor of the world then? It is shame and ridicule. Where is the fleeting pleasure that ends in gall? This very trial is the door opened for your friend and for you to despise this fading life and to cling with boldness to Christ alone. Did the blind man, a beggar, not stand against a murderous crowd and cry out for mercy? And you, who have received the ineffable Mysteries, shall you not now show a holy boldness, not merely begging for a few more years of toil and pain, but demanding the salvation of his soul? Stop the mouths of despair by your own sturdy faith. Do not merely say “if you will, you can heal,” but say “whether you heal this body or not, Lord, remember me in your Kingdom.” To seek only the abatement of physical pain is to settle for a shadow.
Let us then pierce our own hearts with the thought of the Judgment. If you would have him eat, how much more urgently must you feed his soul with the bread of heaven? When you sit by his side, read the Scriptures. Do not sit in drowsy silence or speak only of earthly things. Let the words of the Apostles sink in, which brace up the soul and cast out fear. This sickness is not the enemy; it is the master’s voice rousing you from sleep. Let your prayer be, “Lord, whether by life or by death, restore your servant to Yourself. Grant him patience that rivals the endurance of the saints, and if it be your will for his body, let that will be done; but above all, wash away his sins, and bring him to that place where there is no sickness, nor pain, nor sighing, but life everlasting.” If he recovers, let him live as one resurrected, no longer chasing after the unprofitable works of darkness. If the Lord takes him, you have not lost him, but sent him on before. I entreat you, then, let us turn this affliction into the occasion for that true healing which no man can take away.
Prayer Focus: God, Thank You for loving me. Thank You for loving me, Jesus. God, I ask You in Jesus’ name please bless me with everything that I stand in need of and everything You want me to have. 
