Affliction, a School of Experience – Charles Spurgeon

WHY should I dread to descend the shaft of affliction, if it leads me to the gold mine of spiritual experience? Why should I cry out if the sun of my prosperity goes down, if in the darkness of my adversity I shall be the better able to count the starry promises with which my faithful God has been pleased to gem the sky? Go, you sun, for in your absence we shall see ten thousand suns; and when your blinding light is gone, we shall see worlds in the dark which were hidden from us by your light. Many a promise is written in sympathetic ink, which you cannot read until the fire of trouble brings out the characters. It is good for me that I have been afflicted that I might learn your statutes.