In general terms we even acknowledge that we are not exempted; and yet, when actually visited by personal or relative troubles, we seem like a traveller suddenly overtaken by a thunderstorm; all is confusion and alarm: our faith, and hope, and joy, take wing, and leave us solitary and sad. In our alarm we forget God, think it "strange," brood with a melancholy, but guilty pleasure, over our sufferings, and act as if we thought that "God had forgotten to be gracious." But "let them that suffer according to the will of God, commit the keeping of their souls to him in well doing, as unto a faithful Creator." "Four things," observes Melancthon, "ought to be well impressed upon our minds respecting afflictions. "1. They are appointed. We do not suffer affliction by chance, but by the determinate counsel and permission of God. "2. By means of affliction God punishes his people; not that he may destroy them, but to recall them to repentance and the exercise of faith; for afflictions are not indications of displeasure, but of kindness--'He willeth not the death of a sinner.' "3. God requires us to submit to his afflictive dispensations, and to expend our indignation and impatience upon our own sins; and, since he determines to afflict his church in the present state, submission tends to glorify his name. "4. Resignation, however, is not all; he requires faith and prayer, that we may both seek and expect divine assistance. Thus he admonishes us, 'Call upon me in the day of trouble, I will answer thee, and thou shalt glorify me.' "These four considerations are applicable to all our afflictions, and are calculated, if properly regarded, to produce that truly Christian patience, which essentially differs from mere philosophical endurance." [49] As soon as the Shunammite came to Elisha, she fell at his feet and embraced them. Gehazi attempted to thrust her away, but the prophet told him to desist, intimating that he perceived she was in some deep affliction with which he was unacquainted. Then bursting out in the abrupt language of impassioned grief, she exclaimed, "Did I desire a son of my lord? Did I not say, Do not deceive me?"