When tempted in our season of overwhelming sorrow to say, “Never has there been so dark a cloud, never a heart so stripped and desolate as mine!” Let this thought hush every murmur, “It is your Father’s good pleasure!” The love and pity of the most tender parent — is but a dim shadow compared to the pitying love of God. If your heavenly Father’s smile has for a moment been exchanged for the chastening rod — be assured there is some deep necessity for the severe discipline. If there are unutterable yearnings in the soul of the earthly parent as the surgeon’s scalpel is applied to the body of his child; infinitely more is it so with your covenant God as He subjects you to those deep wounds of heart! Finite wisdom has no place in His inscrutable ordinations. An earthly father may err; is ever erring; but “as for God — His way is perfect!” This is the explanation of His every dealing: “Your heavenly Father knows that you have need of all these things.

John MacDuff, The Rainbow in the Clouds (Monergism Books edition)