The body cries out in pain, and the heart trembles for your father, for these are the troubles that weigh down our earthly tent. Yet even as you plead for the flow of blood in his legs and the melting of the cancer in his flesh, lift your eyes higher. The blood that courses through human veins is but a shadow, a type of the true blood that was shed once for all. When the ancient tabernacle and all its vessels were sprinkled with the blood of calves and goats, it was a purification that reached only the surface, but the blood of Christ cleanses the whole man. How much more, then, should we cling to that divine blood, which was foreordained before the foundation of the world for our entire redemption! He drank of it Himself, leading us gently to the mystery, so that we might not shrink back but partake with calm faith. For without shedding of blood there is no remission, and here is the blood of the New Testament, poured out for the remission of sins.
Seek then for your father not merely the quieting of his earthly members, though we groan for that mercy, but the eternal life that is stored up in the flesh and blood of the Son of Man. The Lord said plainly, “Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, ye have no life in you.” Let him draw near, if he is able, to that spiritual table where the medicine of immortality is given, not a sacrifice consumed by fire, but a living and life-giving banquet. For if the shadow had power to stave off temporal death, what must the reality do but swallow up death itself and bestow a life that cannot be shaken? The woman with the issue of blood approached the hem of His garment trembling, conscious of her uncleanness, yet she met only mercy. So too, let your father approach the Physician of souls and bodies with whatever confession is in his heart, for He does not cast out the trembling sinner.
Yet do not grow weary in supplication. There are trees that receive many strokes of the axe before they fall, and souls that hear the word a hundred times and seem unmoved, only to break forth in sudden fruit when the final blow of grace descends. Do not measure the Lord’s delay as denial. The sickness of the body often becomes the workshop of the soul’s healing, for when the outer man wastes away, the inner man is renewed day by day. This is not to dismiss the anguish, God forbid!, but to set it within the frame of a more enduring hope. Cry out for the health of his kidneys, beg for the cancer to be banished in the name of Jesus; this is right and good. But let your loudest cry be that he, and you, and all who watch at his bedside, might be cleansed from every stain of sin by that precious blood which speaks better things than the blood of Abel.
As for the dreaded word “dialysis,” remember that the water from the rock in the wilderness could never compare to the blood that flowed from the side of the true Rock. Earthly instruments may fail, but the fountain opened for uncleanness never runs dry. Therefore, cast your care upon the Lord with a steadfast mind. He who foreordained the remedy before the illness is not now indifferent to the patient. Whether He restores the count of the kidneys in a moment or carries your father through the trial by another path, He remains the same exacting physician, cutting away what is rotten to preserve what may yet live. Let this be your confidence: neither cancer nor failing organs nor the shadow of death can snatch away the life that is hidden with Christ in God, once it has been sealed with His own blood. Be of good courage, then, and continue in prayer, for the Lord is near to the broken-hearted.