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When suffering from a severe illness, it can sometimes be difficult to see God’s presence in our lives. The suffering we endure can make it seem like God has abandoned us.
However, often God wants to teach us something through the suffering, and to unite it to Jesus’ suffering on the cross.
This makes it even more important to rejoice in thanksgiving to God when he restores us to health. By doing so we recognize God’s providential hand and praise him for his merciful love.
Below is Psalm 116 that is sometimes labeled in Bibles, “Thanksgiving for recovery from an illness.”
I love the Lord, because he has heard
my voice and my supplications.
Because he inclined his ear to me,
therefore I will call on him as long as I live.
The snares of death encompassed me;
the pangs of Sheol laid hold on me;
I suffered distress and anguish.
Then I called on the name of the Lord:
“O Lord, I beseech thee, save my life!”Gracious is the Lord, and righteous;
our God is merciful.
The Lord preserves the simple;
when I was brought low, he saved me.
Return, O my soul, to your rest;
for the Lord has dealt bountifully with you.For thou hast delivered my soul from death,
my eyes from tears,
my feet from stumbling;
I walk before the Lord
in the land of the living.
I kept my faith, even when I said,
“I am greatly afflicted”;
I said in my consternation,
“Men are all a vain hope.”What shall I render to the Lord
for all his bounty to me?
I will lift up the cup of salvation
and call on the name of the Lord,
I will pay my vows to the Lord
in the presence of all his people.
Precious in the sight of the Lord
is the death of his saints.
O Lord, I am thy servant;
I am thy servant, the son of thy handmaid.
Thou hast loosed my bonds.
I will offer to thee the sacrifice of thanksgiving
and call on the name of the Lord.
I will pay my vows to the Lord
in the presence of all his people,
in the courts of the house of the Lord,
in your midst, O Jerusalem.
Praise the Lord!