Your burden for your dear mother in her bed of affliction has been heard with tender sympathy, and we join our hearts with yours at the throne of grace. To see one so loved laid low, unable to eat, her appetite gone and troubled with vomiting, unable to rise and walk, is indeed a sore trial, and we very speedily care for bodily diseases for they are too painful to let us slumber in silence.
We would point you to the great Physician, our Lord Jesus Christ, in whom there is an abundance of healing power. The Scripture tells us that the leaves of the tree of life were for the healing of the nations, and we have learned that even the least thing about Christ is full of healing virtue. Not only is His fruit sweet and nourishing, but His leaves, His most gentle touches, are healing. The Sun of Righteousness has risen with healing in His wings, and when He healed the sick of the palsy He first said, Son, be of good cheer, your sins are forgiven you, showing that pardon and healing are in happy conjunction.
We remember also Peter's wife's mother who was lying sick of a fever. Healing must come before serving, and Jesus came and took her by the hand and lifted her up, and straightway the fever left her and she arose and ministered unto them. There was a contact established between the Saviour's hand and the sufferer, and in that touch there was power to raise up. So still He is able to heal, and Calvary is the place for the healing balm.
Let us pray together for her.
O Lord our God, Father of mercies, look in compassion upon this afflicted mother. Thou seest her critical state, her weakness, her loss of appetite and her vomiting. We beseech Thee to lay Thy healing hand upon her. Stay her vomiting, restore her appetite, give her strength to receive nourishment, and in Thy mercy raise her up that she may walk again. Thou art the Lord who heals all our diseases and forgives all our iniquities. Grant unto her, and unto all who love her, the healing that flows from Christ, the healing of soul and body, and let Thy will be done in her with abundant grace. If it be Thy good pleasure, lift her up as Thou didst lift up Peter's wife's mother, that she may yet rise and be restored.
And while we thus plead for mercy, we bow with humble submission to Thy sovereign will, saying, It is the Lord, let Him do what seemeth Him good. Teach us to walk humbly with God in profound deference to His will, yielding both active obedience and passive acquiescence, and to trust that whether Thou dost raise up or sustain in affliction, Thy grace is sufficient. May this trial draw every heart to seek first forgiveness through the blood of Jesus, for that is the root of all true healing, and may faith, though it be but as a grain of mustard seed, look unto Christ and live.
We will continue to bear you and your mother before the Lord, asking Him to grant wisdom to those who care for her and comfort and peace to you as you watch and wait upon Him.