There is a peculiar distress in a complaint that strikes at the very instrument of utterance, and many a minister has known the bitterness of a silenced tongue. The loss of a clear voice seems to cut one off from the common fellowship of speech and the high privilege of audible praise. Yet I charge you, let not this affliction drive you to despair, but rather let it become the occasion for a prayer which rises to God out of the low dungeon. Jerusalem was on the brink of destruction when the Lord answered the prayer of Hezekiah and smote the vast host of Assyria, and the prayer that is near unto the gates of death is a prevailing prayer. Cry out to Him, even if your cry be but a whisper in the soul, for the prayer that has no sense in it because the man who prays is at his wit's end, that prayer God will hear.
You value the surgeon's skill for a bodily disease, yet bodily cures too often occupy our thoughts to the neglect of the deeper malady. The healing power of Christ is conspicuously present, not merely for the throat or the flesh, but for the entire nature. The least thing about Him is healing, the very leaves of the Tree of Life are for the healing of the nations. Jesus linked the healing with the teaching, for He is the heavenly Physician who applies the remedy, not merely the lancet that exposes the wound. Lie before Jesus as that palsied man lay, hoping and expecting forgiveness and healing. Ask to be forgiven, and healing will come from the pardoning hand. When He pronounced that man's sins forgiven, pardon and healing were one.
Examine your heart, for sometimes failure in prayer is caused by sin harbored, and sometimes the chastisement is an admonition. Self-conceit tears the chariot wheels from prayer so that it drags heavily. Yet even if sin be the root, still cry both in the daytime and at night, for the voice of Jesus cheers and comforts where the mere thunders of the Law would but dismay. Imitate the prayer of Jacob in humility, spreading your case before the Lord with arguments, yet expecting that the answer may come in a way you did not anticipate. He can restore what the cankerworm has eaten and make these very vocal cords instruments of praise again. Only do not trust in forms, nor in the regular attendance at the house of prayer, nor in any mere instrumentality, but in the still small voice of God which alone confers the peace that passes understanding. The Lord is pitiful and of great mercy; lay hold upon His promise and do not let the dark suggestion drive you from the closet. Prayer, mighty prayer, will yet prevail if it has but time.