A Vale Of Soul Making
John Gipson
Little Rock, AR
10/22/97
A Vale Of Soul Making
It was Keats who spoke of the world as a vale of
soul-making.
The lady I visited in the hospital obviously looked upon her pain and suffering in this way. She began by first telling me how much she had learned about the grace of God since she had been confined to her hospital bed. And from this beginning point she went on to speak of the growth of compassion in her soul.
I always felt something for those people I saw in the grocery store pulling a little red wagon which contained an oxygen bottle, but it was nothing compared to the compassion I feel now. I have to admit, she confessed,
I’ve been praying that God wouldn’t teach me anymore about compassion right now because I don’t think I could stand it.
Or consider the retired naval man caring for his wife in a wheelchair, and lovingly brushing her hair to soothe her. He said that he had always been a man’s man until illness had struck his wife, and he had discovered a sympathy and ability to care that he did not know he had.
God’s ways of dealing with us are far beyond my ability to understand, but inspired men have revealed blessings to be obtained. The apostle Paul, for example, is certain of it.
We rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit which has been given to us. Romans 5.3-5.
—JOHN GIPSON
Little Rock, AR
