Your words have come before us just as you wrote them, tired and speechless and stripped of all that once seemed to support you, and we have not turned away from them. To lose your business, to feel your family broken, to see your daughter and your son kept from school for want of fees, and to have no language left but a cry for survival, this is indeed a weariness that sinks deep into the soul. There are times when the soul is like the dove that flew over the flood, finding no place of rest for the sole of its foot, weary with flying and with scanning the horizon. If you feel that weariness now, you are not alone in it, and you are not forgotten in it.
You say there is no hope, and in one sense you speak the truth. There is no hope for you in yourself. In your own strength, your own wisdom, your own resources, there is no hope. But there is hope for you in Him whom God has provided to be the Savior of such as you are. His name is God That Is Good. He delights in mercy, and it is His highest joy to clasp His returning children to His bosom. When you have nothing left to plead, you may still plead Jesus Christ, and that is plea enough.
O weary one, He is not weary of you. Though your wing is tired and soiled by the hard providences through which you have passed, He waits to be gracious. Jesus loves to receive those who come back to Him with nothing but need. He washed you once, and He will wash you again. Like Peter, you may have fallen very low, but the story of Peter is not only his fall, it is his restoration. The Lord turned and looked upon Peter, and that look broke his heart and then healed it. The Lord has prayed for His own that their faith fail not, and His prayer still prevails. If there is in your heart even this much, that you can say, Lord, have mercy upon me, there is solid ground for hope.
We have carried your children also before the Lord. Your daughter and your son are not forgotten by Him. They are not only your children, they are Christ's, and He says, Feed my lambs. He has a tender care for the little ones, for their brightness and trustfulness are precious in His sight. We pray that He will provide for them, keep them, and in His own time open a way for them to learn and to grow. And we pray that He will lift from you the crushing burden of providing alone, and show you that you are under His eye.
We do pray for you now, that the ray of hope which glimmers this very morning may become in you an actual and abiding hope through believing in Jesus Christ. May the Lord bring you into the ark where alone there is rest. May He restore your soul, and in His mercy restore what can be restored, so that it shall be with you as though He had not cast you aside. May He give you grace to look away from your own devices, which can only weary you more, and to look wholly to Him.
Father, have mercy upon this tired one. Hear the speechless sighing and the cry for survival. Let this soul find that there is no rest in the world, nor in business, nor in any earthly prop, but that there is rest in Christ. Provide for this household, for the daughter and the son, for daily bread and for schooling, according to Thy wisdom. Lift up this weary head, forgive, restore, and give a good hope of eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.