Gently whispering to you

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My dear friend, I have felt my mind moved to write you a few lines, not only to sympathize with you in your affliction, but also to express my affection for you, and my sincere pleasure that the blessed Lord has been with you to bless your soul with some melting sense of His mercy and love.

If you can view it by the eye of living faith, you will see your present state of pain and bodily suffering—a million times preferable to all that the worldling's can covet! The things which are seen are temporal—but the things which are not seen are eternal. It is incalculably better to be afflicted and have Jesus in the affliction—than to have all the honours, pleasures, and riches that Satan can offer—or the world bestow.

But we do not voluntarily choose afflictions. The Lord takes care to choose them for us, and they are just such as are suitable to our condition and circumstances. You would not have chosen to have your leg and arm broken—but doubtless it was good for you to have them broken—or they would not have been so.

There is no curse in this affliction—no vindictive punishment. It is rather the voice of a kind Father, gently whispering to you, "My son, give me your heart!" May the Lord make your bed in your sickness, and sweetly overshadow your soul with His love which passes knowledge.