The best way I can describe the discomfort compares to having a doctor insert a three-inch hypodermic needle just to the left of the spine, exactly where the kidney sits. Occasionally, just for fun, the doc then twists the needle in a slow, clockwise motion. The pain literally nauseated me.

Never before had I experienced such an inescapable ache. The most frightful part was I had no idea what was happening.

As I described the symptoms to a doctor friend of mine the following day, he said it sounded like a kidney stone. It’s probably just a kidney infection, I thought, not a kidney stone.

As a boy, I had watched my father struggle to pass a kidney stone, and it wasn’t pretty. From my perspective at that time, I thought his kidney stone was just part of being old. And since I wasn’t old . . . I was safe. Perfectly logical.

A couple of days later, I sat in the urologist’s office, staring at the educational posters on his walls that scare patients into healthy living. He came in, shook my hand, and announced in a ho-hum manner, “You have a kidney stone.”

Holding up my x-ray, he pointed to a small, delta-shaped blip between my kidney and my bladder. It looked to me like lint on the x-ray, so I asked if he was sure. He just looked at me for a moment. “Yes, and it’s as large as a raisin.”

Suddenly, I felt really old.

As he proceeded to describe my options for removing the stone, I felt like King David having to choose his method of punishment from God after David’s impetuous census (2 Samuel 24:13-14). NONE of the options sounded good. I decided, as David had, rather than placing myself in the hand of man I would fall upon the mercies of God—and see if the stone would pass on its own.

As it turns out, God’s mercies take their sweet time.

Dealing with chronic pain day after day, sometimes minute by minute, can challenge a belief in the goodness of God. Waiting for that little darling to pass made me rethink my theology of Purgatory.

After three weeks, the little monster finally was exorcised from my body.

“You need to drink more water,” the doctor told me on my follow-up visit. Uh, yes—I am convinced. “Converted” might be a better word.

The kidney stone wasn’t my problem. It only revealed it. My problem was dehydration.

Sometimes the pain we experience—be it physical, emotional, or spiritual—is just part of living in a fallen world.

But very often, pain also serves as a warning that something in our lives needs to change.

Pictures by Roger McLassus and Li-sung.