Your many burdens have been laid bare before the Lord, and it is right to bring them to Him, for He cares for you and for your house.
Do not be so affected by external things as to get into a state of worry and distress about your temporal affairs. Be prudent, as our Saviour teaches, and do not spend wastefully what God has entrusted to you, yet do not let anxiety master you. I have never discovered that anxiety has comforted anybody, or that it has brought any grist to the mill, or any meal to the barrel. If a thing does not pay, what is the good of it. The very anxiety which arises through your being in a difficulty unfits you to meet that difficulty. Your care about your finances, your father's business, your overdraft and your search for work, is known to your Father in heaven. Cast it upon Him. He who clothes the lilies and feeds the sparrows will not forget His children. Pray that your father may have honest provision from his labour, and that you may be kept from fretfulness while you wait upon the Lord for daily bread and for open doors of employment.
You ask for prayer for your head, that it may be clear, and for any spiritual attack upon your body. Know then that there is a conflict within the believer. The Spirit and the flesh strive within, and this must continue till our dying day. Yet there is also the enemy of souls who, as a soul comes to Christ, throws him down and tears him. If Satan is trying to tear you, tell him it is written, He is able to save to the uttermost all who come unto God by Him, and whosoever cometh He will in no wise cast out. Do not think the Lord will cast you away because your mind is clouded or your prayers feel weak. The Lord knows your frame. Come as you are, and He will deliver you from that desperate conflict.
You speak of a massive fight with your brothers over creative landscaping and over the family business. This is a grief that touches the whole household. God in infinite grace entered into covenant with Noah to preserve him and his family, and they were saved together as they entered the ark in obedience. So the Lord would have a house walk together in peace. Where strife has entered, there must be reform and a return to God. Family prayer is the nutriment of family piety and the castle of the household. I urge you, and your mother and father also, to give yourselves to prayer together, and to private prayer diligently and spiritually maintained. Seek not to win the argument but to be reconciled, speaking truth in love, and leaving vengeance and covetousness to be judged by God.
You say you feel worthless because you are not married and do not have children, and that you are anxious to know your future. Hear this, your worth is not measured by a husband or by children, nor by a bank balance. Those who have been quickened and made to live are introduced into the family of God, and they have one never failing mark. They are led by the Spirit and they cry, Abba, Father. When He says to a poor fearful soul, You are My son, I have adopted you into My family and you shall go no more out forever, it is not too good to be true, for He gives as only He can give. Whether married or single, whether with many children or with none, all things are yours if you are Christ's, and you are Christ's if you have trusted in Him alone for salvation. Marriage, when God gives it, is a lifelong covenant of one man and one woman, and children are a gift from His hand, but singleness also has its service in the Lord, and neither state can add or subtract from your acceptance in the Beloved. Do not let the world tell you that you are worthless. Your value is in Christ who bought you with His blood.
You ask also for a small thing, that you may get the cake made, and for a great thing, that you may be able to pray. God despises not small cares, and He hears great cries. Bring the cake, and the overdraft, and the job applications, and the sleepless head, all to the same throne. If you cannot pray as you would, pray as you can. Tell Him you cannot pray. God grant that private prayer may be more diligently maintained, not by fine words but by a sincere heart. He helps our infirmities.
Let us pray together.
O Father, merciful and faithful, we come through Jesus Christ alone, our only Saviour and Advocate. Look upon this dear soul and upon mother and father and brothers. Forgive sin, wash in the blood of Christ, and adopt into Your family all who yet are outside the ark. Give clearness of mind and peace to a troubled head, and rebuke every assault of the enemy. Provide for this family in temporal things, prosper honest labour, and keep them from waste and from want. Heal divisions between brothers, take away anger and envying, and make this home a house of prayer. Comfort the heart that feels worthless and anxious for the future, and show that worth and hope are in Christ, whether married or unmarried, and that You withhold no good thing from them that walk uprightly. Grant favour in seeking work, deliverance from debt, and grace to be content and industrious. Hear even this simple request for daily tasks, and teach this soul to pray, though it be but a sigh, and to cast all care upon Thee, for Thou carest for us. Keep us till we are gathered into the whole family in heaven and earth, undivided and at home with the Lord. In Jesus name, Amen.
