The sicker the man, the more bitter the medicine that the doctor prescribes for him. At times, even, it seems to a sick man that the medicine is worse and more bitter than the sickness itself!

—St. Nikolai Velimirovich

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For it is absurd to be grateful to doctors who give us bitter and unpleasant medicines to cure our bodies, and yet to be ungrateful to God for what appears to us to be harsh, not grasping that all we encounter is for our benefit and in accordance with His providence.

—St. Anthony the Great

God has not forgotten the man to whom He sends suffering and trials, but in this way is proving His closeness to him.

—St. John Chrysostom

If God wants us to suffer, there’ll be some saving purpose behind it, which we mortals can’t foresee. But patience, forbearance and humility in the face of temptation will always, yes always, bring certain benefit.

—Elder Ephraim of Arizona

When Dr. Payson was asked by a friend, in a season of severe illness, if he could see any particular reason for the present dispensation, he replied- “No; but I am as well satisfied as if I could see ten thousand. God’s will is the very perfection of all reason.”

… 

in suffering and weakness, you are brought to “Lie passive in His hands, And know no will but His!”

…

The discipline of patience is another light blending with the shadows of sickness. No unimportant or untimely grace of the Spirit is this; the development and culture of which finds no school more appropriate, or discipline more effectual, than that of ‘pining sickness.’

The continuous endurance of unmitigated pain- the prolonged and deathly weakness- the failure of skill and remedies to promote a cure- the morbid irritability and fretting almost inseparable from the prolongation of suffering- and the remembrance of duties neglected, of affairs deranged, of expenses incurred- all conspire to render the discipline of patience the most needed and precious; and when attained, to shed one of the most luminous graces of the Spirit upon the shaded picture of bodily disease.

Lights and Shadows of Spiritual Life
Octavius Winslow

When times are good for us, we can come up with all sorts of arguments to explain away the pain of others and the existential angst we occasionally experience in our wealth and privilege. But when times are bad, all logic and arguments fail. Then what we think we believe is stripped down to what we actually believe.

…

it is possible (probable) that very godly, intelligent and well-meaning people will disagree. Let’s not let self righteousness—and her children, fear, anger, and judgement—keep us from loving one another and believing the best of one another, even if we don’t see eye to eye on this or any other political or medical matter.

Strong feelings quickly become passions. Let us not lose this opportunity to love our neighbour, especially the neighbour who doesn’t see things the right way (i.e. the way I see them).

—Fr. Michael Gillis
Love and Self Righteousness

Joseph of Thebes says: “Three works are approved in the eyes of the Lord; the first, when a man is ill and temptations fall upon him, if he welcomes them with gratitude; secondly, when someone carries out all his works purely in the presence of God, having no regard for anything human; in the third place, when someone remains in submission to a spiritual father in complete renunciation of his own will. This last will gain a lofty crown indeed.” And then he accentuates, “As for me, I have chosen illness.”

Likewise Abba Poemen said: “If three men are in the same place and one of them lives in hesychia, and the second gives thanks to God in illness, and the third serves with a pure mind, these three are doing the same work.”

—Metropolitan of Nafpaktos Ierotheos, Orthodox Psychotherapy, The Science of the Fathers

Every tribulation reveals the state of our will.

—St. Mark the Aescetic