The fever that afflicts your little one is indeed a cause for grief, but you have turned to the right source. Recall how our Lord entered the house of Peter and found his wife’s mother lying sick with a fever. He touched her hand, and not only did the fever depart, but strength returned at once, so that she rose and served them. No physician could accomplish this; after fevers break, the body remains weak for many days. Yet Christ’s healing is complete and immediate, for He is the Lord of all creation. Therefore, take courage. The same power that restored that woman is able now to restore your child.
But as you ask for prayer, examine your heart. Do you cling to any other remedy in secret? Some, when their children fall ill, resort to amulets and charms, saying, “The old woman is a Christian, and she calls upon God.” This is nothing but idolatry dressed in pious words. If you are among the faithful, what need have you of trinkets? The Cross is your only weapon, your only remedy. Sign it upon the child’s forehead and upon your own; call upon the name of Jesus. To use such charms, even if they seem harmless, is to abandon the fountain of living water and dig broken cisterns. It is to flee from the Physician and run to a poisoner. Be a martyr in your resolve: better to endure the fever with faith than to seek deliverance through forbidden means. For the mother who refuses amulets for her sick child sacrifices her son in her heart, and she is counted a martyr. The one who yields, though she call herself Christian, has already committed the act of idolatry.
Let your prayer be watchful and fervent, not drowsy and weighed down with food or care. Remember Hannah. She rose from the table lightly, and poured out her soul before the Lord with many tears, begging for a son. She did not bargain with money or make a brief request; she offered the child back to God entirely. You also, offer this little one to the Lord, not for a year or two, but all the days of his life. Pray with tears, with groaning, with the whole heart. Say, “Lord, God of hosts, look upon the affliction of your servant and heal my child, and I will give him to you all his days.” Such prayer pierces the heavens.
Yet understand that Christ heals the body chiefly to heal the soul. In the Gospel, when a father came to Him pleading for his dying son, the Lord rebuked his unbelief, showing that the miracle was meant to restore the father’s soul no less than the son’s health. So perhaps this fever is permitted that you might draw near to God with greater earnestness, or that the child might grow to love the Lord who delivered him. Do not therefore seek only the quenching of the fever, but the renewal of your whole household in faith and holiness.
As for you who stand with this parent in prayer, be not like the crowd rushing to the theater, gray in hair but childish in mind. Let the elders in the church be sober, and let all watch in prayer. The enemy desires to sift you, but Christ ever lives to intercede. I commend this little one to the Lord, and I urge you all to do likewise, with fasting and supplication. May the God who rebuked the fever in Peter’s house rebuke this fever now, and restore the child to perfect health, for the glory of His name and the strengthening of the faithful. Amen.