On bearing illness #2

In the book Wounded by Love, St. Porphyrios related this,

I thank God for granting me many illnesses.  I often say to Him, My Christ, Your love knows no limits!  How I am alive is a miracle.  Among all my other illnesses, I also have cancer of the pituitary gland…I am in dreadful pain.  But, I pray, taking up the cross of Christ with patience…I’m in great pain, but my illness is something very beautiful.  I feel it as the love of Christ.  I am moved and I give thanks to God.  It is on account of my sins.  I am sinful and God is trying to purify me.  When I was sixteen years old, I asked God to give me a serious illness, a cancer, so that I would suffer for His love and glorify Him through my pain…God did not forget my request and He gave me this benefaction after so many years!  Now I do not pray for God to take from me the very thing I desired.  I am glad that I have it so that I can participate in His sufferings through my great love.  I have the chastisement of God:  For the Lord chastises the one He loves, (Heb. 12:6).  My illness is a special favor from God, who is inviting me to enter into the mystery of His love…That’s why I do not pray for God to make me well, rather I pray for Him to make me good.