Praying for a Lost Sibling

It is perhaps the most painful and personal ache I have ever experienced.

It is a kind of spiritual rejection which only Christ can heal. It is a rift, a tear, a hole in the ties of sibling-hood, and it is grievous.

A lost sibling doesn't only mean lost in the sense of spiritual darkness. The definition of lost that I have experienced is a loss of friendship, a loss of closeness, a loss of presence. It is spiritual darkness with the added grief of estrangement.

My heart holds fast a vision for the future: a vision of restoration and healing. A vision of strengthened bonds and forgiven pasts. Though my heart aches, I lean on Christ. Though I doubt things could ever be the same, I pray that God would water in my heart a deep love that covers the multitude of losses that have incurred.

I believe that now is the time of fervent prayer. Now is the time to accost Heaven on their behalf. Now is the time for intercession - unceasing, unyielding intercession. Though the enemy seems to have them in his grasp, I will cling all the harder to their souls in prayer, and so it may be that these tears and these broken prayers will snatch them from the fire.