It Reads Love in the Darkest of Afflictions

"The hour of affliction is an hour of temptation. Satan loves to fish when the waters are troubled. He would bring us to hard thoughts of God, by the hard things we suffer from God; 'touch him, and he will curse thee to thy face.' In such stormy weather, some vessels are cast away. A corrupt heart in adversity, like water boiling over the fire, then most of all discovereth its froth and filth, Isa. 8:21.

But though frosty seasons are hurtful to weeds, yet they are helpful to good corn. A sanctified person, like a silver bell, the harder he is smitten, the better he soundeth. Faith is a special antidote against the poison of the wicked one. It can read love in the blackest characters of divine dispensation; as by a rainbow we see the beautiful image of the sun's light, in the midst of a dark and waterish cloud. God's rod, like Jonathan's, is dipped in honey. Our daily bread and our sharpest rod, grow upon the same root."
~George Swinnock
The Works, Vol. 3, p. 404