Spurgeon on Suffering, via Piper

SpurgeonJohn Piper's verbal biographies are wonderful.  I'm listening again to his bio of Spurgeon and just had to throw up a few quotes.  They are rocking me today in the midst of all the stuff our family is going through.  Here's the Piper audio, and the manuscript.

It would be a very sharp and trying experience to me to think that I have an affliction which God never sent me, that the bitter cup was never filled by his hand, that my trials were never measured out by him, nor sent to me by his arrangement of their weight and quantity.

Another...

I dare say the greatest earthly blessing that God can give to any of us is health, with the exception of sickness ... If some men, that I know of could only be favoured with a month of rheumatism, it would, by God's grace mellow them marvelously.