Heavenly Father hears the cry of a mother’s heart. You have placed your son within the fortress of prayer, and the hedge you seek is not built by human hands but by the mercy of Him who commands the angels. Remember that our God is merciful and full of lovingkindness, yet He uses even terrors to awaken us to desire the kingdom. So do not grow weary, but let your prayer be joined with holy fear and vigilant faith.
The angels are ministering spirits, a flame of fire, sent to serve those who inherit salvation. They are not idle sentinels; they attend the word of God and obey His will. Therefore, do not only ask for their presence, ask that your son may walk in such obedience that he remains under their unseen guard. For the same God who makes His angels winds and His ministers a flame of fire has given us His Son, and it is through union with Christ that we are kept. Teach him to taste of that Body which sits above, adored by angels, and no darkness will overcome him.
Let your son also become light. For when the apostle says, “Reprove the unfruitful works of darkness,” he means that a life of manifest godliness exposes evil and drives it away. If your son lives openly in the light of Christ, no hidden abuse can long endure. Darkness flees when the light of a holy life shines. Therefore, pray not only for a hedge around him, but that he himself may become a hedge, a living barrier of righteousness that repels the devil and all his snares. For the devil, though he exalts himself, crawls under the feet of those who humble themselves before God.
Yet do not think deliverance comes without trial. The furnace follows the axe; the books of our deeds are opened. This is not to terrify you into despair, but to stir you both into sober watchfulness. Abuse, whether physical, emotional, or spiritual, often finds entrance through some crevice of sin. Let your son examine himself, and let your prayers include the petition that any hidden fault be brought to light and blotted out. For God desires not the death of a sinner, but that he turn and live. And while the day of account is fearful, it is precisely this fear that the merciful God holds before us to drive us into the safety of His kingdom.
Set your mind and his on things above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. There is the true security. There the long war is ended, death destroyed, Paradise opened. Cling to those good tidings: God on earth, man in heaven, reconciliation made. When your son knows that he is a member of Christ’s body, he will not easily be shaken. Fill your prayer with thanksgiving for this hope, and the peace of God will garrison his heart and mind in Christ Jesus. The enemy may press, but the One who is in him is greater than the one who is in the world.
Continue, then, to entreat the Lord for mercy, as Onesiphorus obtained mercy. And labor with your son to walk worthy of his calling, for the word spoken by angels was steadfast, and every transgression received a just recompense. How much more shall we escape if we neglect so great a salvation? Yet it is not neglect you show, but fervent love. Let that love be fruitful in holy conversation, and you shall see the deeds of darkness brought to nothing, and your son shall stand complete, guarded by the peace that passes understanding.