On Affliction

I have now completed the second round of medical treatments for my relapsed leukemia. After finishing four courses of arsenic trioxide, I transitioned to the stem-cell harvest phase. This required six shots a day for four days of the drug Neupagen, which raises your stem-cell levels in your blood stream. The shots weren't particularly painful (my wife and nursing student daughter did the dirty work), but they resulted in bone pain. This past Monday I went to Hackensack University Medical Center to have my cells harvested. To harvest them, a catheter had to be placed in my upper chest. Imagine an IV the size of pencil. I had to sit hooked up to a machine which separates your blood into components, and saves the stem-cells. It took five hours to complete the process. I had to do the same thing again yesterday. So I've been undergoing a fair bit of affliction, pain, anxiety, etc. The good news is that they got the required amount of stem-cells in just two days, and today I had the big catheter removed.

Feeling afflicted these past few days made me turn to Graham Miller's wonderful anthology of quotes from John Calvin. Here are a few which put our afflictions into their proper context.

"The disciples of Christ must walk among thorns, and march to the cross amidst uninterrupted afflictions" (Harmony of the Gospel, I:388).

"For God does not consider, in chastening the faithful, what they deserve; but what will be useful to them in the future; and fulfills the office of a physician rather than of a judge" (Gen. I:178).

"Many crosses spring forth to us from the root of God's favour" (Gen II:266).

"When visited with affliction, it is of great importance that we should consider it as coming from God, as expressly intended for our good" (Ps. II:472).

"The best fruit of afflictions is, when we are brought to purge our minds from all arrogance, and to bend them to meekness and modesty" (Ps. III:201).

"Our afflictions prepare us for receiving the grace of God" (Is. II:333).

"The afflictions of the Church are always momentary, when we raise our eyes to its eternal happiness" (Is. IV:141).

"Afflictions are not evils, because they have glory annexed to them...We are not afflicted by chance, but through the infallible providence of God" (Gen. Epp. 43).