Spurgeon
Beloved of All
Sit down here beside me just a moment. You have had heavy news, the sort that falls upon a parent’s heart like a stone into still water, sending ripples of fear out in every direction. Your daughter is carrying a little girl, and the doctors have spoken words that sound so final, so frightening, a missing chromosome, a syndrome with a name, a future that seems already written in terms of complications and struggle. I do not brush that aside. The weight of it is real, and a grandfather’s or grandmother’s love feels it keenly. But I want you to lift your eyes from the laboratory report and the somber faces, and look with me toward another place.
When our Lord entered Peter’s house, He did not find it free from trouble. There was a dear woman burning with a great fever, and the shadow of death lay across the threshold. Yet the presence of Jesus transformed that sickroom into a palace. The fever did not flee because the house was perfect; it fled because the Healer had arrived. So it is with you now. The news you have heard has come, but Christ has come also. He has not left your daughter or that tiny, beating heart within her to face this alone. The Great Physician still walks among us, and the power of the Lord is still present to heal. I do not know every detail of what He will do, but I know this, His power is not less than a chromosome, and His love is not halted by a medical textbook. There is more mercy in His little finger than in all the wisdom of this world.
I have noticed that the grandest cures He ever worked were done where the need seemed most desperate. When a man was let down through a roof, paralyzed and helpless, Jesus first spoke words that seemed strange to the bystanders: “Your sins are forgiven you.” It was as though He would teach us that the deepest healing always begins where we cannot see it, in the hidden places of the soul. Then, to show He had authority over every other malady, He told the man to rise, take up his bed, and walk. Our Lord is not a physician who can only treat one part of us. The same hands that were nailed to the tree for our guilt are the hands that fashioned every thread of that baby’s being, each chromosome, each feature, each breath she will draw. He has not forgotten how to form a child, and He has not lost the right to finish what He began.
You ask me to pray that the diagnosis would prove false, that this little one would be born whole and strong. I will pray that very thing with you, and I will not pray it half-heartedly. Did not He say, “Ask, and it shall be given to you”? There is no impertinence in bringing a mother’s child, a daughter’s daughter, before the throne and pleading for a miracle of health. The leaves of the Tree of Life are for the healing of the nations, and those leaves still grow within reach of prayer. Take this fear, this fierce love, this aching hope, and speak it plainly into your Savior’s ear. He does not despise a grandmother’s tears.
But let me add this comfort, even as I kneel beside you in spirit. If the path should prove to be different than the one we are begging for, if the Lord in His unsearchable wisdom should permit a measure of trial to accompany this child, you may be certain of this: the grace will be there when the trial arrives. I have known saintly souls, full of the very image of Christ, who have been invalids for decades, and every word they spoke was like choice fruit gathered in the gardens of Heaven. Not all sickness is from the devil, and not all affliction is a mark of displeasure. Whom the Lord loves, He often chastens, not in anger, but with the tender purpose of drawing hearts closer to Himself and displaying His own sufficiency. Every chromosome, every cell of that baby’s body, is known to Him. There will be no surprises in the delivery room for the God who numbers the stars and calls them all by name.
What your daughter needs most just now, and what you need, is to hear those words spoken to the paralytic: “Son, be of good cheer.” Or, shall we say, “Daughter, be of good cheer.” Not because the news is light, but because the Savior is near. Cast the burden of tomorrow upon Him today. The black-edged envelope that arrives at our door often contains a love letter from God that we cannot read until afterward. He writes best in the dark, and His strokes are most tender when our eyes are wet.
Look at that tiny girl, not yet seen by human eyes, and see her as already belonging to the One who said, “Suffer the little children to come unto Me.” Whether she arrives with a diagnosis or delivered from one, she arrives into a world where Jesus Christ has walked and wept and healed. Commit her now, with all the fierce hope in your heart, into those scarred hands.
Let us pray.
Lord Jesus, You who still carry the prints of the nails, we bring before You this little hidden life, so fearfully and wonderfully made in the secret place. You have the final word over every cell, every bone, every future day. We ask boldly, oh, we plead with You, let this child be born whole, free from every complication, a testimony to those who trust in You. But if in Your deep wisdom You should ordain a different cup for this family, then pour into it such sweetness of Your presence that they shall yet praise You. Hold the mother steady. Hold this dear grandparent steady. Let them feel beneath them the everlasting arms. We rest the whole matter with You, for You have loved us and given Yourself for us. Amen.
When our Lord entered Peter’s house, He did not find it free from trouble. There was a dear woman burning with a great fever, and the shadow of death lay across the threshold. Yet the presence of Jesus transformed that sickroom into a palace. The fever did not flee because the house was perfect; it fled because the Healer had arrived. So it is with you now. The news you have heard has come, but Christ has come also. He has not left your daughter or that tiny, beating heart within her to face this alone. The Great Physician still walks among us, and the power of the Lord is still present to heal. I do not know every detail of what He will do, but I know this, His power is not less than a chromosome, and His love is not halted by a medical textbook. There is more mercy in His little finger than in all the wisdom of this world.
I have noticed that the grandest cures He ever worked were done where the need seemed most desperate. When a man was let down through a roof, paralyzed and helpless, Jesus first spoke words that seemed strange to the bystanders: “Your sins are forgiven you.” It was as though He would teach us that the deepest healing always begins where we cannot see it, in the hidden places of the soul. Then, to show He had authority over every other malady, He told the man to rise, take up his bed, and walk. Our Lord is not a physician who can only treat one part of us. The same hands that were nailed to the tree for our guilt are the hands that fashioned every thread of that baby’s being, each chromosome, each feature, each breath she will draw. He has not forgotten how to form a child, and He has not lost the right to finish what He began.
You ask me to pray that the diagnosis would prove false, that this little one would be born whole and strong. I will pray that very thing with you, and I will not pray it half-heartedly. Did not He say, “Ask, and it shall be given to you”? There is no impertinence in bringing a mother’s child, a daughter’s daughter, before the throne and pleading for a miracle of health. The leaves of the Tree of Life are for the healing of the nations, and those leaves still grow within reach of prayer. Take this fear, this fierce love, this aching hope, and speak it plainly into your Savior’s ear. He does not despise a grandmother’s tears.
But let me add this comfort, even as I kneel beside you in spirit. If the path should prove to be different than the one we are begging for, if the Lord in His unsearchable wisdom should permit a measure of trial to accompany this child, you may be certain of this: the grace will be there when the trial arrives. I have known saintly souls, full of the very image of Christ, who have been invalids for decades, and every word they spoke was like choice fruit gathered in the gardens of Heaven. Not all sickness is from the devil, and not all affliction is a mark of displeasure. Whom the Lord loves, He often chastens, not in anger, but with the tender purpose of drawing hearts closer to Himself and displaying His own sufficiency. Every chromosome, every cell of that baby’s body, is known to Him. There will be no surprises in the delivery room for the God who numbers the stars and calls them all by name.
What your daughter needs most just now, and what you need, is to hear those words spoken to the paralytic: “Son, be of good cheer.” Or, shall we say, “Daughter, be of good cheer.” Not because the news is light, but because the Savior is near. Cast the burden of tomorrow upon Him today. The black-edged envelope that arrives at our door often contains a love letter from God that we cannot read until afterward. He writes best in the dark, and His strokes are most tender when our eyes are wet.
Look at that tiny girl, not yet seen by human eyes, and see her as already belonging to the One who said, “Suffer the little children to come unto Me.” Whether she arrives with a diagnosis or delivered from one, she arrives into a world where Jesus Christ has walked and wept and healed. Commit her now, with all the fierce hope in your heart, into those scarred hands.
Let us pray.
Lord Jesus, You who still carry the prints of the nails, we bring before You this little hidden life, so fearfully and wonderfully made in the secret place. You have the final word over every cell, every bone, every future day. We ask boldly, oh, we plead with You, let this child be born whole, free from every complication, a testimony to those who trust in You. But if in Your deep wisdom You should ordain a different cup for this family, then pour into it such sweetness of Your presence that they shall yet praise You. Hold the mother steady. Hold this dear grandparent steady. Let them feel beneath them the everlasting arms. We rest the whole matter with You, for You have loved us and given Yourself for us. Amen.
