The trial has been long, and the pain deep. This is not denied. Yet consider: when the woman with the fever was touched by the Lord, the disease departed and strength returned at once, not by the slow course of nature but by the fullness of divine power. Why then does He permit the season of suffering to stretch on for two years in the case of your household? Not because His arm is shortened, but because a different healing is at work, one that requires the slow burning away of what cannot endure the fire of His presence. The hidden burdens you carry, the fear of ungodly powers, the dread of what unseen enemies might do: these are the very things He would extinguish. The flame of this trial has risen high, even to heaven, but it can be mastered. By your will it got head, and by your will, cooperating with grace, it shall be brought under.
You ask Him to step in. He has already stepped in. The continuous hurdles are not the absence of His intervention but the form of it. The spiritual forces of darkness have no power except what is permitted for the testing and purifying of the soul. When the mind is fixed on the vanity of deliverance on our own terms, we miss the deliverance He is working. You fear breaking physically, mentally, financially. But if the body wastes, what is that if the soul grows fat? If the purse is emptied, what loss is that if the treasure in heaven is filled? The love of wealth, the clinging to ease, the demand to be freed from every discomfort: these are the real enemies, more dangerous than any adversary from without. They drown men in destruction.
You speak of revenge and harm from spiritual forces. Turn your gaze inward. The battle is not chiefly against what prowls in the air but against the passions that make common cause with them: the resentment that hardens the heart under prolonged affliction, the despair that whispers God has forgotten, the covetousness that measures His favor by the abundance of things. These are the wounds that fester while we stare at the shadow of an external foe. One who is freed from riches but remains soft and unmanly has gained little. There must be careful hearing, continual recollection, fortitude, and deliverance from all worldly things. No one part alone suffices.
Let the family enter heaven now. Not in place, but in disposition. It is possible for those on earth to stand in heaven and see the things there and hear the words from thence. This sickroom, this strained account, this very fear: it can become the vestibule of glory if the heart is sober and watches. Do not say, I have but one talent. Even by one talent you may approve yourself. Contribute what you have: the diligence of prayer, the protection of a word of faith spoken to a frightened child, the alms given from the little that remains. Nothing so pleases God as to live for the common good, and your household is the first common good entrusted to you.
The hidden burdens are known to Him. He does not wait to be informed. He waits for the soul to cease its frantic scanning of the horizon for the next blow and to sit still, to consider the true riches. The things of earth are a dream, a shadow, a flower, a stream that flows by. But the punishment that comes from sin done by reason of them stays. Let the fear of that punishment, which is real and eternal, swallow up the lesser fear of what man or demon can do. The Christ-slayer perished not because the bag was heavy but because the love of gain had eaten out his heart, though he walked with the Light itself. How much more must we fear lest covetousness, or the lust for a life without trouble, imitate Judas?
Rise up, then. Take the healing treatment. It is bitter to the taste, but it restores. Perhaps you have heard such words ten times and remained insensible. Yet the eleventh blow may fell the tree, and all the previous strokes were not wasted. Bring forth the fruit now. Lay aside the heaviness, not by the removal of every trial, but by the coming of the Beloved Physician, whose presence is health entire.
Prayer Focus: God, Thank You for loving me. Thank You for loving me, Jesus. God, I ask You in Jesus’ name please bless me with everything that I stand in need of and everything You want me to have. 
