Reading about Suffering

"When one man dies, one chapter is not torn out of the book, but translated into a better language; and every chapter must be so translated; God employs several translators; some pieces are translated by age, some by sickness, some by war, some by justice; but God's hand is in every translation, and His hand shall bind up all our scattered leaves again for that library where every book shall lie open to one another...So this bell calls us all; but how much more me, who am brought so near the door by this sickness."

"I can read my affliction as a correction, or as a mercy, and I confess I know not how to read it. How should I understand this illness? I cannot conclude, though death conclude me. If it is a correction indeed, let me translate it and read it as a mercy; for though it may appear to be a correction, I can have no greater proof of Your mercy than to die in Thee and by that death be united to Him who died for me."

John Donne (1572-1631), Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions in Philip Yancey, Where is God When It Hurts?