We have heard your cry and we bring it before the throne of grace with you, thanking the Lord with you for His faithfulness and grace which have followed you and your household until this hour.
Your loved one is very sick, suspected to be a grievous cancer, with labouring breath and wasting of the flesh, and heavy bills pressing upon the family, and you ask the Lord for a way out. We very speedily care for bodily diseases, for they are too painful to let us slumber, and they soon urge us to seek a physician, and you have done well to seek help, yet there is a greater Physician still. See in Christ the great conduit Head from which abundant streams of healing flow down to men below. The Scripture says the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations, and the least thing about Christ is healing. Not only His fruit is sweet and nourishing, but the leaves, the little things as it were about Him, are full of healing virtue. A touch of His garment, a word from His lips, a look from His eyes has healed multitudes. He took the widow's kinswoman by the hand and lifted her up, and the fever left her, and she arose and ministered. There is healing in that blessed contact of His incarnate hand.
Remember also that healing and pardon are placed in happy conjunction. When Jesus healed the sick of the palsy He said, Son, be of good cheer, thy sins are forgiven thee, and pardon and healing were one. The Sun of Righteousness has risen with healing in His wings, and when He comes to dwell with His people they have no need to say, I am sick. We would have you seek first the forgiveness that is in His blood, for soul healing is the root of all other healing, and then bring the body also to Him who is able to heal both. He binds up the broken heart with bands of grace, and He can change the life blood and make the nature other than it was before. Whether He restores by means of the physician's skill or by His own immediate power, all healing virtue comes from Him, and His salvation will at last perfectly heal our bodies when He shall present us without spot or wrinkle.
Cast upon Him also the burden of these great expenses. Your heavenly Father knows what things you have need of, and He who clothes the lilies and feeds the sparrows will not forget His children. He is able to open streams in the desert and to make a way where there seems to be no way. Trust Him for daily provision and for wisdom for those who have the care of your loved one, and be diligent to use all lawful means while you rest your confidence not in means but in the Lord Himself.
For your family, we pray that the Lord who restored Peter with a look, and severed him from the crowd and brought him back with weeping to usefulness, would restore and strengthen your household. Let this trial draw you nearer to Christ and nearer to one another, that you may prove your love by acting a brother's part and a sister's part, strengthening one another and ministering unto the Lord in the common duties of the house, sweetening them with love for Him.
Let us pray together. O Lord Jesus, great Physician of soul and body, look in mercy upon this suffering one and upon this family. Thou knowest the pain, the difficult breathing, the wasting, the fear of what the disease may be, and the weight of cost. Lay Thy hand upon her and lift her up if it be Thy will, and grant skill to those who tend her, and peace to her heart. Speak pardon and healing to her soul, that she may know her sins forgiven through Thy blood. Provide for this family according to Thy riches, and make a way out for them where they see none, that they may praise Thy name. Restore this household, keep them from wandering from Thee, and make them to know more of Thy restoring grace, that after weeping they may rejoice and serve Thee with double earnestness. We ask this in Thy name, who livest to intercede for us, Amen.
