A Lament for a Sick Friend

O Lord, is your email inbox full?
Have our incessant pleas for help reached your junk mail folder?

Why is this cancer ravaging his body?
And also the multiple devastating complications of the treatment?

My heart is wracked with sorrow and frustration as I pray for him;
I cannot see the light at the end of the tunnel.

O Lord, save him from his suffering;
Uphold his wife and children who also bear the pain.

O Lord, deliver him by your outstretched arm;
for your power and your compassion are great.

See how he and his family have trusted you!
In the storm of despair and anger, they have clung on to you.

May the pathogens ravaging him be ravaged themselves;
Disease will not have the last word in his life.

We hold fast through this dark night;
You will make the morning stars shine on its canvas.

Let his story of deliverance be told to those who belong to you and those who don’t;
and many will laud and love the Lord of life!

Benjamin Sun (MDiv, 1)