When the walls of your earthly dwelling crumble and your body is wracked with pain, remember that these very trials are permitted by a loving God to turn your heart from the fleeting shadows of this world to the enduring house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. The collapses you see are but a dream that will vanish when the day dawns; the house you weep over is a tent that must be dissolved so that you may long for that building from God. Do not let your soul be weighed down with despair or frantic grasping for wealth, for the love of money is a root of evils, and provision for the flesh must aim only at health, not at kindling the furnace of wanton desire. As I have often said, to be injured is not to suffer true injury; the one who seems stripped and afflicted receives the greater blessing if he endures nobly, while the one who wrongs or envies thrusts a sword into his own soul.
Your leg’s pain, the loss of your roof, the distress of sickness, these are not signs of God’s absence but occasions to practice that blessed patience which stores up treasure in heaven. Take care of your body soberly, as a steward, using remedies with thanksgiving, but do not fear its weakness overmuch, for this corruption must put on incorruption. As for the financial help you urgently seek, pray with confidence, yet let your prayer be free from the bitterness that demands immediate relief as if God were a debtor. He who feeds the sparrows will not despise your need, but He often delays that He may purify your hope.
Be not like those who add house to house by rapine, but wait upon the Lord with a peaceable spirit, and in His time He will raise you up. Meanwhile, let your mourning be tempered with the knowledge that the Kingdom of heaven is prepared for those who suffer wrong. The present life is indeed a sleep full of terrifying dreams, but the daybreak of Christ’s return will show that your true house stands unshakeable, your true body is glorious, and your true wealth is the grace sent from above. Hold fast, then, and let your distress drive you not to murmuring but to that sober wakefulness which stores oil in the lamp of faith.