Pleasant Stone Devotional Meditation: July 22

“As for me, I will behold thy face in righteousness: I shall be satisfied, when I awake, with thy likeness” ~ Psalm 17:15

This is a “purple stone” verse to me [Eugenia Price, the author], because its meaning became real to me out of much suffering. While we are still “in prison,” we are alone.

Even if our prison is crowded, even if most of the others in the world are in it, we are still alone. We can suffer there creatively and eventually come out into the sunshine of freedom in Christ, or we can suffer there in self-pity and stay away inside in the airless shadows.

No-one is immune to suffering. Jesus Himself is the supreme sufferer. It has been said that the “red thread of suffering is woven into the very fabric of the universe.” But there are two ways to suffer. Creatively and defensively.

If we suffer defensively, we complain and pity ourselves. If we suffer creatively, we have come a long way into the wonder of the redeemed life. Creative suffering is expectant suffering. You will suffer. I will suffer. But when our weeping is too great for words, our hearts can still expect Jesus Christ to be Himself in it.

We can choose about all this. If we choose to complain, He permits our complaints. If we choose to suffer expectantly, He gives us the grace to do it. When a certain suffering in my own life turned expectant, I began to understand our “purple stone” verse at the top of this page. I began to understand creative suffering. As I stopped complaining, even though the suffering continued, I found my own heart able to whisper this and mean it:

“… I shall be satisfied, when I awake, with thy likeness.”