Your prayer for your cousin has been heard and it is a right and loving burden that you bring before the throne of grace. To see one who once loved Jesus much grow cold and idle is a sorrow that many hearts have known, and it moves us to pray with you that the Lord will awaken her again.
Be encouraged, for the eyes of mercy are quicker than the eyes of repentance. As it was with the prodigal, the father saw him while he was yet a great way off, long before the son saw the father. Even so the Lord sees your cousin still. He has not forgotten the love she once professed, and His heart is ready to run and to receive, to kiss with much love and much forgiveness and to give full restoration. When the prodigal came back his father did not make him a hired servant, but restored him to sonship, and there was music and dancing in the house. So it shall be if she returns, she shall be to her Father as if she had never wandered, washed and made whiter than snow through the blood of Jesus Christ.
You do well to pray that her spirit may be awaked and that sloth may be put away, for laziness is not from God, and faith without works is not the faith of God's elect. True faith obeys the precept and will not go a step without Christ, and it shows itself in diligence and in many good things done for His name. Yet remember that even little faith is true faith if it begins and ends with Jesus. It is the gift of God, born from above, and though it be but as a grain of mustard seed it can do wonders, for the least faith in Jesus belongs to the family of the saved. Pray that the Lord will kill the weakness and quicken the faith, that what is little may be made strong.
Therefore continue in overcoming prayer, for saints learn to overcome goodness itself by the importunity of faith. As the woman of Canaan overcame the Lord by her mighty faith and pleading, and He yielded to the strong arms of conquering prayer, so your prayers for your cousin may prevail with Christ. He delights to be overcome by the faith looks of His children, and He darts inexpressible joy into the heart that looks to Him.
We will join you in praying that the Lord will give her a look as He gave Peter, a look that breaks the heart with godly sorrow and works a bitter and saving repentance, a look altogether between the Lord and the soul which severs from the crowd and restores. May He turn her eyes again to Jesus, so that she drops anew into His arms, which is the very pith and essence of faith, and may He stir her from sleep to serve Him with joy. She is yet young and her whole life is before her, and what a mercy it will be if these years are spent not in slumber but in the service of her Redeemer.
Let us pray together. O Lord our God, look in mercy upon this wandering one. Thou hast seen her afar off and Thou knowest her frame. Forgive her wanderings, restore unto her the joy of Thy salvation, and awaken her to love Jesus as at the first. Wash her and she shall be clean, purge her heart and make her diligent in every good work to the praise of Thy grace. Hear the prayers of those who love her and plead for her, and let it be said of her as of the prodigal, that she arose and came to her Father, and her Father fell upon her neck and kissed her in much love. For Jesus sake, Amen.
