It comes to you in the night hours, doesn’t it, that quiet weight upon your heart for your mother. You watch the one who once carried you now needing strength she cannot summon on her own. The hands that fed you, that soothed away childhood fears, now lie wearied in her lap. And you would give anything, do anything, to see health return to her frame.
The Physician who walked the lanes of Galilee still practices His art, and He is not baffled by any case that comes before Him. Luke tells us that the power of the Lord was present to heal, and that power has not diminished with the passing centuries. Your mother’s weakness is not hidden from Him who knows every thread of her constitution. The same Jesus who bent low over Peter’s mother-in-law when she lay sick of a fever, who touched her hand and lifted her up, He has not lost His tenderness, nor has His arm grown short.
Do not think for a moment that your mother’s age, or the length of her trouble, or the number of her complaints places her beyond the reach of His healing virtue. Our Lord never turns away a patient because the case is too complicated. The tree of life that stands in the heavenly paradise bears its fruit every month, and its leaves are for healing. Even now, on this side of glory, drops of that healing dew fall upon parched spirits and aching bodies. Your mother may not leap like a hart this afternoon, but the Great Physician can restore what the locust has eaten. He can make her bed in her sickness and strengthen her upon it.
And do not overlook the deeper healing that He delights to give. There is a health of the entire being, body, soul, and spirit, that our God is working even when the outward frame seems slow to mend. The sweetest cordials are often poured into the heart while the body waits. He who forgives all our iniquities is the same who heals all our diseases. Sometimes He does the one work first, and the other follows in its season. You may safely leave the order with Him.
Commend her to the Lord and then leave her there. You are doing the very thing Job was found doing when his own captivity was turned, praying for another. That is no small ministry. To carry your mother’s name into the presence of Jesus, to lay her weakness before the mercy seat, is to place her where the most skillful hands in the universe can attend her. He has never yet turned a deaf ear to a child pleading for a parent.
Let us pray now.
Lord Jesus, You who are the same yesterday, today, and forever, look upon this dear mother with Your healing gaze. You know every complaint that weakens her frame and every fear that troubles her mind. Stretch out Your hand and touch her with restoring power. Give her strength for the day, peace for the night, and the sweet sense of Your nearness through every hour. Comfort the heart of this child who loves her and grant them both to rest in the unfailing certainty of Your care. For Your name’s sake. Amen.