Strength, Not Escape

“My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness.” — 2 Corinthians 12:9 (KJV)

Brother Lawrence’s last letters were written to a friend who was seriously ill, and to be honest, they contain some of his hardest words.

Most of us, when someone we love is in pain, pray one thing: make it stop. Lawrence wrote something different: “I do not pray that you may be delivered from your pains, but I pray God earnestly that He would give you strength and patience to bear them as long as He pleases.”

That may sound cold. It wasn’t. He wrote, “I am in pain to see you suffer so long.” But he believed that God was at work even in suffering, and he wanted his friend to find God there instead of only waiting for it to be over. He wrote:

“I wish you could convince yourself that God is often (in some sense) nearer to us, and more effectually present with us, in sickness than in health.”

He wasn’t giving advice from a comfortable chair. He was old, often ill, and in pain himself. He told his friend, “I have been often near expiring, but I never was so much satisfied as then. Accordingly, I did not pray for any relief, but I prayed for strength to suffer with courage, humility and love.”

Some of his advice needs a word of care. In one letter he told his friend that since the medicines were not working, they should stop relying on them and trust God for healing. Remember that this was the 1600s, when medicine was often more harmful than helpful. Lawrence’s real point was where to put your trust, not a rule against doctors. If you are ill, take your medicine and see a doctor, and trust God while you do it. Both are gifts from him.

Lawrence was also honest that God sometimes feels far away in hard times. “He sometimes hides Himself from us,” he wrote, “but faith alone, which will not fail us in time of need, ought to be our support.”

In the last of these letters, his friend had begun to recover a little. Lawrence thanked God for it, and then wrote, “I hope from His mercy the favor to see Him within a few days.” A note in the old edition records what happened next: “He took to his bed two days after, and died within the week.” It was February 1691.

You are probably not near the end of your life. But you will face pain: illness, loss, anxiety, things that don’t get fixed quickly. Lawrence’s letters give you a prayer for those times. Not only “take it away,” though you can always ask that. Also: “God, give me strength to go through this with you.”

One thing to do this week: think of someone you know who is suffering right now. Pray for them every day this week, both for relief and for strength and God’s closeness in it. Then send them a message to let them know you are thinking of them.