Sickness has this advantage

that it draws our sweet Physician's hand and his holy and soft fingers to touch our withered and leper skin: it is a blessed fever that fetches Christ to the bedside -- I think my Lord's, "How doest thou with it, sick child?" is worth all my pained nights.

Sure I am, it is better to be sick, providing Christ come to the bedside and draw the curtains, and say, "Courage, I am thy salvation," than to enjoy health and never need to be visited of God.

Friends, I bless you for your prayers; add to them praises.


Adapted from Samuel Rutherford's The Loveliness of Christ after a brief illness