Your pain is known to God, and we will join our prayers with yours, asking the Physician of souls and bodies to grant you healing and deliverance. But while you wait for His answer, I entreat you, do not despise this season of suffering. Great is the gain of afflictions for those who endure them with a grateful mind. The Son Himself learned obedience through what He suffered, and was made perfect through trials, becoming the source of salvation for all who obey Him. How much more then do we, being frail and prone to wander, find our faith strengthened and our hearts purified when we submit under the hand of God?
Consider that long-suffering is the root of all self-denial. In times of ease, the soul grows dull of hearing and becomes entangled in worldly desires; but pain, if received rightly, awakens the spirit and teaches us to cling to God alone. It is not the absence of pain but the bearing of it with patience that produces the peaceful fruit of righteousness. I say nothing burdensome: I do not bid you to despise medicine or to neglect prayer for healing, but I exhort you to use this trial as a cure for the deeper sickness of the soul. For just as gold tested in fire comes forth brighter, so the man who passes through sorrow with thanksgiving emerges more radiant in virtue.
Do not let this affliction be a cause for discouragement, but rather a school of obedience. God shows His long-suffering not that you might lose heart, but that you might turn to Him with all your strength and find Him a refuge. If He permits pain, it is because He loves you and desires your perfection. We pray fervently that He would lift this burden from you; yet if He delays, know that His delay is mercy, drawing you nearer to Himself. Let your body’s weakness become a throne for His power, for when we are weak, then we are strong in Christ. We will entreat the Lord on your behalf, and we trust that whether by swift healing or by the sustaining grace that carries you through, you will testify to His goodness.