You cry out with holy desperation, and that is good, for the Lord draws near to the brokenhearted. Yet hear this: the great anxiety that grips your household, the turmoil of soul in your granddaughter, the vanity that consumes her mother, the lostness of her stepfather, these are not merely bodily afflictions. They are a famine of the soul, a hungering for what only Christ can give. Do you not see how our diligence, our remedies, our frantic efforts accomplish nothing unless the providence of God goes before? The mother runs after facials and Botox, wasting money on that which cannot add a single cubit to her stature or peace to her heart. The daughter feels a sensation in her throat, and though the doctors find nothing, still she is in agony. Is this not a shadow of a deeper starvation, a spirit crying out for the Bread of Life?
Consider the care that God has already shown. He did not spare His own Son but gave Him up for us all. If He gave His very blood as bail for your souls, will He then despise you now? It cannot be! He who died and rose again to be Lord of the living and the dead takes more thought for our salvation than any earthly father for his child. The enemy would have you believe that you must fix all this by your own striving, that enough prayer, enough rebuking, enough authority will break these chains. But power belongs to God, and He works through surrendered hearts. You take authority, but how can one take hold of Christ while clinging to anxiety? The devil lashes us with fear, with dread of the future, and we toil as slaves in Egypt, making bricks for a cruel master. Groan, therefore, and look up to God, and He will send His Word, bringing compunction, freeing you from this bitter slavery.
The cure for your granddaughter is not only the ceasing of a sensation but the filling of her soul with Christ. That tightness in her throat is a call to come to the Physician who says, “Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” Not just rest from panic, but the rest of sins forgiven, of a life hid with Christ in God. Bid her set her mind on things above, not on the fleeting comforts of her mother’s approval. For her mother, too, is sick, bound by a spirit of self-love that makes her rude, that drives her to the surgeon’s knife. Vanity does not see that the body is dust, but the soul must be adorned for eternity. Pray indeed, but also speak the truth in love: all these cosmetic pursuits are a chasing after wind, and unless she repents, she will lose both her money and her daughter.
As for the stepfather, do not despair. He who called the Samaritans “fields already white for harvest” can make this man’s heart ready, even now. The Lord’s power is unconquerable. But salvation is not a spell to be cast; it is a turning of the will. So let your prayer be for a holy desperation that leads to full surrender, not surrender to your advice as a grandmother, but to the Captain of their salvation, who was made perfect through sufferings and who alone can bring many sons to glory.
Cast your hope on Him, not on the fading strength of your own anxieties. For hope in God is no mere wish; it is the anchor of the soul. And with your supplications, let there be a supply of the Spirit, which comes when we quiet our clamorous hearts and trust completely. Your granddaughter’s throat, commend it to the Lord who made it, and cease from the turmoil that fixes her mind perpetually on her affliction. Our Christ is not one who will leave us to drown. He stretched out His hand to sinking Peter, and He will stretch it out to her. Only let her eyes be fixed on Him, not on the storm. Then shall you see that this trial, which you now dread, will turn out to your salvation and to theirs, and Christ shall be magnified, whether by life or by death, by healing or by patient endurance. Peace be unto this household, but a peace that comes only after the war of surrender is won.