We make a lot of demands before God. For good fortune, health, well-being and all. We pray more to God in moments of pain and sickness. Sometimes we are surrounded by people who do not know how to pray.
Brother Lawrence, a seventeenth-century Carmelite monk, explains in a letter to his friend how to pray in moments of pain and illness.
Brother Lawrence tells his friend not to pray for healing in times of sickness, pain and suffering. God sometimes allows us physical suffering for the sanctification of the soul. Therefore, it is not necessary to ask God for healing during these times. Rather, ask for courage and strength to accept suffering. Many things happen when we need the strength to accept suffering through love for God.
When one loves God and accepts suffering with joy and courage for that love, all those pains will make the experience sweeter. God is a loving Father who is always ready to help us. God’s love for us is beyond our thoughts and imagination. When we thirst for such God’s love, when we pray for it, God will give us what we need and more than we need.
We can apply this suggestion in our lives as well. We can pray to be filled with God’s love, no matter how great our difficulties, pains and sufferings are. Sometimes all these sufferings are opportunities given by God for the sanctification of our souls. Throughout history, we can see many saints who combined their sufferings with the sufferings of Jesus.
God loves us unconditionally. Many of His blessings will be poured out on us every day. So let us pray for the strength to endure the pain of suffering that is yet to be borne and to love God more.