The Sun of Righteousness has risen with healing in His wings, and to Him we bring every need of body and soul. You have asked prayer for your dear mother, that her cough would prove no grave thing, that her tumours would shrink, and the lymph nodes be made clear. This is a plea that touches the heart of our Lord Jesus, who went about doing good and healing all manner of sickness and disease among the people. He is the same yesterday, today, and forever, and His power to heal has not diminished one whit.
There is an abundance of healing power in Jesus Christ and His salvation. Not only is His fruit sweet and nourishing, but the very leaves of that tree, the least things about Christ, are full of healing virtue. He spoke, and the sick were made whole; He stretched out His hand, and fevers fled. It is our privilege to bring your mother before the throne of grace, pleading the precious blood, for healing and pardon are placed in happy conjunction. When the Lord forgives, healing often follows; when He heals, it is a token of His readiness to forgive. We ask that she may yet have many years of happiness among you, if it be His will, and that even now the inward newness of eternal life might cause her spirit to blossom like a garden watered by hidden springs.
Yet remember, the Great Physician does not always dispense His remedies in the same measure or at the same speed. Some He lifts up in a moment, and immediately the leprosy departs. Others He calls to wait upon Him in a bed of weakness, and there they shine with a lustre not seen in the strong. I have known saintliest persons bedridden for years, in whose faces the very image of Christ was conspicuous, and from whose lips dropped choicest sentences of holy experience. The healing of the soul often outstrips the healing of the body, and that is the weightier mercy. Should the cough linger or the tumours retreat but slowly, do not cast away your confidence. His grace is sufficient, and His strength is made perfect in weakness. The healing leaves change the life blood and transform the nature, even while the outward frame groans.
Meanwhile, let your mother and all who love her listen to the teaching of Christ. When He was teaching, the healing power was conspicuously present. Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God. Bring her often to hear the gospel feast, to feed upon the promises, to rest in the finished work of Calvary. There is no balm like the sorrows of Gethsemane, no cordial like the rising again from the dead. We join our prayers with yours, asking the Lord to rebuke the disorder, to clear the passages of life, and to grant her a lengthened evening of serene delight in the land of the living. But above all, we ask that she may know her sins forgiven and her soul healed, for what shall it profit a man if his body recover, but his soul be left diseased?
The Lord has begun to heal His people, and the healing virtue which His grace infuses will work health and cure till there is neither spot nor wrinkle nor any such thing. His salvation shall perfectly heal our bodies also, in that day when mortality is swallowed up of life. Until then, let us trust Him in the dark as well as in the light. He makes sore, and He binds up; He wounds, and His hands make whole. Go now to Him who heals the broken in heart and binds up their wounds. Cry to Him with that mighty name which is above every name, and watch to see what wonders He will work. The very hairs of your head are numbered; the days of His beloved are in His keeping. I commend you all to the great Shepherd and Physician of souls, and may the peace of God that passeth all understanding keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.