O God our healer,
Who sweetened Mara's bitter waters with wood:
Sweeten the bitterness and loneliness of illness with the cross of Christ;
Console the ill with the fellowship of His sufferings and the Holy Spirit's comfort;
Show forth the sufficiency of Your grace and fullness of Your power;
Remind Your people to love, encourage, and pray for them;
Heal the grief of missing out, especially on days of celebration;
Forgive those who have added sorrow by their words and actions, intentional and accidental;
Transform sickrooms and hospital beds into sanctuaries through Your presence;
That the sick and their families may endure these afflictions as seeing You who are invisible,
And rest in Your promises that these sufferings are, even now, working for them an overwhelming, eternal, incomparable weight of glory;
In the name of Jesus,
the Man of sorrows who bore our sickness and pain as well as our sin,
Amen.
