Your burden for your two sons has been heard, and we join you in bringing them before the Lord who alone can deliver from the power of darkness and from the pit.
We understand your weariness. You have prayed long and now feel weak, and the things you describe, daily drinking to senselessness, substances and smoking, heated arguments, a voodoo doll set against the wall, talk of demons visiting in the night, and the younger son suffering with fatty liver, would trouble any mother. Yet the Lord hears even the faintest cry of His people. Deliverance from sin is solely by the power of God. It is not of him that wills, nor of him that runs, but of God that shows mercy. He has found a ransom. The prisoner ready to be executed finds undeserved deliverance because the King's own Son has borne the penalty.
We pray that God will do for your sons what only He can do. We do not ask Him to bless what dishonors Him, but to turn them from it. Our prayer is for their salvation through Jesus Christ alone, for that is the only way of deliverance from guilt and from the power of sin. The Scripture says He has delivered us from the power of darkness and has translated us into the kingdom of His dear Son. Where we look for justification, there must we also look for sanctification. The same Christ who bears the curse for sinners, as it is written, Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree, is able to break the chains of drunkenness, drug use, and every bondage, and to make them new creatures who hate the sin they once loved.
Therefore we pray in this way.
Heavenly Father, in the name of Jesus Christ Your Son, have mercy upon these two brothers. You see their lost direction and purpose, their bodies given to excess, their minds clouded, their home filled with strife and with objects and claims that belong to darkness. We ask You to convict them of sin and draw them to repentance and faith in Christ. Grant them to see that the redemption of the soul is precious and that Christ has paid the ransom with His own blood. Deliver them from the power of sin and from the influence of the evil one. Bring them to loathe strong drink and every intoxicating substance, to cast away every occult object, and to seek You with a whole heart. Heal the younger son according to Your will, and use his affliction to awaken him to his need of You. Strengthen their mother. When she has no strength to pray, be her strength, and whisper to her heart that she shall live and declare the works of the Lord. Bring these sons forth as Israel was brought forth, not sharing the honor with any other, but willingly consenting to Your salvation, enriched by Your grace. We ask this for Your glory alone. Amen.
Take courage from this, that God often works deliverance when His people feel weakest. He feels that if he ever rises from despondency, he can never take an atom of the honor to himself, it must be of free grace only. That is right. Look to free grace.
We encourage you to continue in prayer, even with short cries throughout the day, and to rest in the Word. Seek the help of a faithful pastor or elders in your local church, that they may pray with you, visit as they are able, and counsel you. Encourage your sons, as you have opportunity, to seek medical care for the liver disease and to seek pastoral counsel, and to remove from the home every object connected with voodoo or the occult, for those things invite darkness and are an abomination to the Lord. Speak to them plainly and lovingly of Christ, that He alone saves and that He gives a new heart and a new purpose. If they are unwilling to hear at present, keep the door of prayer open and do not cease to commit them to Christ.
The Lord knows how to deliver. May He in His time give you songs of deliverance, that you may say with the psalmist, I shall not die, but live, and declare the works of the Lord, and may your sons be among those who sing with you of a greater salvation than that of Barak, a salvation from worse enemies, wrought by a greater Saviour.
