Your prayer for your ### has been heard with tender sympathy, and we join you in bringing this small creature before the Lord who cares for all His works.
It is a lovely thing to see a heart that marks the suffering of even the least of God's creatures and seeks to tend it with patience, with special food and daily care. The Lord who notes the sparrow's fall is not unmindful of the creature committed to your keeping, and we very speedily care for bodily diseases when they press upon those we love, whether man or beast, for they urge us to seek healing.
We will pray that the Lord in His mercy would restore your ### to health and remove this lingering affliction that has continued since the spring. We ask that He would guide your hands as you care for him, give wisdom to those who may advise you in his treatment, and make the means you use to be effectual for his comfort and healing. We entreat Him to ease this disorder of the body and to grant that a return to ordinary food may be borne well, if it be His gracious will.
Yet we would also turn your thoughts, as the Scriptures do, to that greater healing of which all earthly healings are but a faint shadow. The Word tells us that the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations, and that the least thing about Christ is healing virtue. There is an abundance of healing power in Jesus Christ and His salvation, not only for the body which is soon to pass, but for the sin sick soul which shall live forever. Sin has made the whole head sick and the whole heart faint, and no hand can heal a sin sick soul but the hand that was wounded for us, even the hand of God through the person of Jesus Christ our Lord.
When Jesus healed the sick of the palsy He said, Son, be of good cheer, your sins are forgiven you, and thus He showed that pardon and healing are one. The inhabitant shall not say, I am sick, for the people that dwell where Christ dwells shall be forgiven their iniquity. Oh that you may know this deeper healing, that while you seek mercy for your creature you may also put forth the finger of faith and touch the hem of His garment for yourself, telling Him how sick and how sinful your own heart is, for His ears will hear the whisper of your soul.
May the Lord grant you a constant submission to His divine will in all things, to receive His healing medicine without murmuring and to say, Not as I will, but as Thou wilt, trusting that whether He gives or withholds according to His wisdom, His loving kindness and tender mercies fail not.
We pray thus: Father, in the name of Jesus Christ Thy Son, through whom alone is salvation, look with compassion upon this ### and upon its owner who loves it. If it be Thy will, heal this infirmity and grant restored health and strength. Grant wisdom, patience and peace to him who cares for it, and above all grant the healing of the soul through forgiveness in Christ, that whosoever comes to Him may find no stint in His healing power. Amen.