What is this distress that consumes you? Two days of fever and cough, and you fear as though the Lord were not at hand? Do you not recall how He touched Peter's mother-in-law, and immediately the fever left her, and she rose to serve them? Not only did the heat depart, but her strength returned at once, requiring no long convalescence as with earthly physicians. That same power has not dimmed with the passing of years.
Yet ask yourself now: why has He permitted this small trial upon your daughter? Is it not that your faith might shine forth, as the Canaanite woman's did? Her daughter lay tormented far from sight, yet she cried out, and the Lord answered, "Great is thy faith; be it unto thee even as thou wilt." So too, you must come not demanding, but trusting, believing that He is able and willing to do what is best. The fever itself may be a medicine, burning away some hidden care of this world, some thorn which has sprung up to choke the word. Consider whether ease and prosperity have made your soul drowsy. Perhaps this illness is a call to rouse yourself, to cling no longer to things present but to seek the health that does not decay.
Do not think I speak only of bodily healing. The Lord's cures were never mere displays of power, but always lessons pointing beyond themselves. He asked the blind men, "What will ye that I should do unto you?" not because He did not know, but to make their desire manifest and their faith evident to all. So I ask you now: what is it you truly seek? Only that the fever abate and the cough cease? Or that through this little affliction, both you and your daughter may draw nearer to the Physician of souls? The gift of healing is great, but greater still is the word of teaching that forms the heart in patience and hope.
Therefore, let us not merely ask for the removal of symptoms, as though bargaining with a reluctant Master. He has already tried countless ways to heal the deeper malady of our race, even sending His own Son. So we will pray, not once and then fall silent, but with the persistence of those who know that a tree struck ten times may not fall, yet the eleventh blow brings it down. The repeated hearing of the word, the repeated lifting of the heart in prayer, all these are the blows by which hardness is broken. Come, then, let us together entreat the Lord who loves mankind. He who stilled the sea and rebuked the wind will speak peace to this small body. And even if the healing tarries, do not let your soul be cast down. Those who think themselves wretched only because of bodily distress are more to be pitied than those who actually suffer. For what is poverty, or sickness, or any earthly loss, but a chance to discover the riches that cannot be taken away? May it be, by the grace of Christ, that your daughter rises soon restored, and that both you and she, having seen His mercy, bear fruit worthy of the kingdom.