My Email to a Sick Friend

Like Job’s friends, I think many of us have a tendency to want to give the “easy” or “Sunday school” answer to you in these difficult days. We want to simply assure you that God is in control and therefore all of this “will work together for our good.” (Take Romans 8:28 out of context). But such “pat” answers eliminate the reality of your pain—your physical pain and the relational pain it causes between you, family members and even God. We ask questions like, “What possible good could come from this?” Lord, whatever lesson you are trying to teach me, did you have to impose such a burden on me. There HAS to be a more efficient way of glorifying yourself through me and my life, considering the havoc that this is wrecking on our finances, my career, our marriage, and our family. Lord, if you are in control, why can’t you stop it? I pray that the Lord would put an end to your sufferings immediately. But if it does not, I pray that you would bear patiently under the stresses of this health, even as you wait for your “redemption” from both the physical healing you need your lack of understanding in God’s purpose in all of this. In 2 Corinthians 4:8, Paul says he is “afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair.” I pray that you and your family would moment-by-moment bring your petitions, physical ailments, and needs before him so that, while you can quite rightly be perplexed by God’s purposes, you would not give up (“be driven to despair.”) King David could sleep soundly in the knowledge that the Lord would preserve him from the thousands who followed Absalom and wanted his very life. Likewise, I pray that you would trust in God to heal you. “Arise, Or Lord! Save me, O my God! For you strike all my enemies on the cheek; you break the teeth of the wicked.” Psalm 3. May God break the teeth of your ailments. I pray that in your struggle with God over meaning and purpose, that you would come out of this current phase with an increased reliance on Him, knowing that while His ways are above and beyond our understanding, that He can accomplish great and lasting changes through us and our mortal bodies.