Comfort ye, comfort ye, saith your God. This cry from your heart has entered into the ears of the Lord of Sabaoth, and He has not turned away from it. Pain of body and depression of spirit are no small things; they set the soul upon a rack, and you long for the night to be gone and the day to bring some ray of mercy. It is no fun, as you say, nay, it is a grievous burden that makes the hours drag like a wounded serpent through the sand. Yet hear this: βThis is my comfort in my affliction, for Your Word has quickened me.β Not always does our God lift the trial at the first asking; sometimes the roundabout way is the straight way. He quickens us, and so He comforts us. The outward letter of promise, the inward life of the Spirit, these are the leaves of that Tree whose fruit is sweet and whose very shade drips with healing. Christ in His least word, His smallest touch, is medicine for the sin-sick soul and the pain-wracked body alike.
You have asked for immediate healing, for the symptoms to flee, for sleep to come soft as a dove upon your pillow. It is right that you spread all this before the Mercy Seat, for He bids you cast your burden upon Him. But if the answer tarries, know that He is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able, but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it. Sometimes escaping the pain means not its sudden removal, but a strange new strength to endure it, a quickening that makes the spirit so lively that the bodyβs groans are drowned in hallelujahs. There is better than relief, there is sanctified affliction that leaves you more like the Man of Sorrows. His omniscience knows every twinge; He sees the sleepless night and the heavy day, and He is not cold to it. He who knows all things knows your pain, and the knowledge of a sympathetic Saviour is itself a balm.
I pray for you now, even as the apostle prayed for the saints, that our Lord Jesus Christ Himself, and God, even our Father, would comfort your heart and establish you in every good word and work. Let the Spirit quicken you, and in that quickening let the comfort steal over you like a warm sunbeam through a broken shutter. Remember this: as waters that pass away, you shall forget this misery. The memory of it will be to you as a dream when one awaketh. In heaven there will be no trace of it; even now, His presence can so fill you that the pain becomes but a distant noise in the street while the King sits at your table. The leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations, take one leaf, a promise, a whispered word, a glimpse of the Crucified, and press it to your fevered heart. It shall cool the burning and quiet the throbbing.
Look back, too, upon past deliverances. You have been miserable before, and He has lifted you out of the pit. Is His arm shortened? Is His love exhausted? Nay, He is the same yesterday, today, and for ever. Cry to Him still: βLord, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me.β But then bow low and add, βNevertheless, not as I will, but as Thou wilt.β In that resignation you will find a strange, sweet peace, a bruised reed He will not break, a smoking flax He will not quench. Courage, poor heart! The night is far spent, the day is at hand. May the God of peace Himself give you peace always by all means.