There is great cause to bow before the Lord with you in thanksgiving, for every mercy comes from His hand and crowns the year with His goodness. You have spoken well to give thanks, for all the year round, every hour of every day, God is richly blessing us, both when we sleep and when we wake His mercy waits upon us, and such crowning mercies should suggest special and crowning thanksgiving. O come, let us worship and bow down, let us exalt the Lord our God and come into His Presence with the voice of joy and thanksgiving, each heart bearing its offering.
You speak of love refreshed and laughter restored, and of suffering felt in the body through arthritis. Hear what the Scripture declares, He restores my soul. Having restored our soul a hundred times, He still restores it. It is the way of Him, it is the habit of His love. And again it is written, the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations. Not only is His fruit sweet and nourishing, but the very leaves, the least things about Christ, are full of healing virtue. There grows no healing herb but the one plant of renown, there is but one sacred Fountain opened on Calvary, there is but one great Physician who lays His hands on men and they are restored, and that is Christ Himself. All our healing lies in Christ. Christ is the Physician, and Christ is the Medicine too.
If the Lord has in His providence brought you again into one another's lives and given you joy after sorrow, give Him the glory with inward emotions of gratitude, and seek His face that your joy may be made pure and lasting. The way to have your souls truly restored is not to try to restore yourselves, nor to undergo any process by which you may work yourselves right, but to look to Jesus, for pardon and healing are placed in happy conjunction and both are bestowed on the Lord's people. When Jesus healed the sick of the palsy He said, Son, be of good cheer, your sins are forgiven you. Pardon and healing were one, and the Sun of Righteousness rises with healing in His wings.
We will pray with you and for you.
Our gracious Father, we thank You for every token of Your kindness, for the laughter You have given and for the mercies which have refreshed these hearts. You crown our days with lovingkindness, and we bless Your holy name. We ask You to look in compassion upon the suffering of the body, upon the pain of arthritis, and to grant healing according to Your perfect will, remembering that You heal the broken in heart and bind up their wounds. Restore the soul, we pray, and make every grace to drink new life from communion with Christ. Keep those who rejoice before You in the way of holiness, that their love may be ordered according to Your Word, in purity and truth, and that whatsoever is done may be unto Your glory. Lead them to seek first forgiveness through the blood of Jesus Christ alone, for there is no other name by which we must be saved, and then to walk in the newness of life which Your Spirit gives. Let Your healing virtue work health and cure till body and soul are presented without spot before You. Hear this thanksgiving and perfect that which concerns them, for Jesus sake. Amen.
