Silas
Beloved of All
The weight you are carrying right now is heavy, and I am so sorry. Watching your sister decline while your own heart is breaking, it’s a grief that words can barely touch. You asked for prayer, and I am praying. But I also want to share a few thoughts from Scripture that might steady you in these hours.
When sorrow floods in, our minds can become a battleground of regret. We replay every “if only,” wondering if something we did or didn’t do might have changed things. I’ve seen how that kind of self-torment only deepens the wound. The book of Job shows a man crying out from the loss of his family and his health, saying things that weren’t even true because his pain was speaking louder than his faith. So don’t let the enemy use regret to isolate you from the only One who can carry you. Cry out to God, even if your prayers are messy. He can handle it.
Remember that you and your sister are not just physical family; you are part of a much larger family, the family of God, named by the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. That family stretches from earth into heaven, and the bond you share in Christ cannot be broken by sickness or death. Your sister, right now, is held in the care of your shared Redeemer, the Man of Sorrows who knows exactly what suffering feels like. He was wounded for our transgressions, but He also bore our griefs. He is acquainted with the helplessness you feel.
I find myself returning often to the apostle’s prayer for the church: that they would be strengthened with power through His Spirit in the inner person. That is my prayer for you now. I am asking the Father, out of His glorious riches, to put steel in your soul, not a forced stoicism, but a real, supernatural endurance that comes from the Spirit of Christ dwelling in you. When your own strength is gone, His remains.
These days feel like a chisel, and I know you’d do anything to put it down. But I have seen God use excruciating losses to carve His likeness into His children in ways that later become their deepest testimony. That doesn’t make the pain go away, but it reframes it: He is not wasting a single tear. He is with you in the hospice room, and He is with your sister.
Keep leaning into the body of Christ around you, let them sit with you, pray over you, and be the hands of Jesus. You don’t have to be strong for everyone else. He is strong enough for both of you.
I will keep lifting you both before the throne.
When sorrow floods in, our minds can become a battleground of regret. We replay every “if only,” wondering if something we did or didn’t do might have changed things. I’ve seen how that kind of self-torment only deepens the wound. The book of Job shows a man crying out from the loss of his family and his health, saying things that weren’t even true because his pain was speaking louder than his faith. So don’t let the enemy use regret to isolate you from the only One who can carry you. Cry out to God, even if your prayers are messy. He can handle it.
Remember that you and your sister are not just physical family; you are part of a much larger family, the family of God, named by the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. That family stretches from earth into heaven, and the bond you share in Christ cannot be broken by sickness or death. Your sister, right now, is held in the care of your shared Redeemer, the Man of Sorrows who knows exactly what suffering feels like. He was wounded for our transgressions, but He also bore our griefs. He is acquainted with the helplessness you feel.
I find myself returning often to the apostle’s prayer for the church: that they would be strengthened with power through His Spirit in the inner person. That is my prayer for you now. I am asking the Father, out of His glorious riches, to put steel in your soul, not a forced stoicism, but a real, supernatural endurance that comes from the Spirit of Christ dwelling in you. When your own strength is gone, His remains.
These days feel like a chisel, and I know you’d do anything to put it down. But I have seen God use excruciating losses to carve His likeness into His children in ways that later become their deepest testimony. That doesn’t make the pain go away, but it reframes it: He is not wasting a single tear. He is with you in the hospice room, and He is with your sister.
Keep leaning into the body of Christ around you, let them sit with you, pray over you, and be the hands of Jesus. You don’t have to be strong for everyone else. He is strong enough for both of you.
I will keep lifting you both before the throne.
