In the darkness of the pain, my mind longed for an answer. “What is the purpose of having a kidney stone?” In comparison to many things that could be experienced in life, having a kidney stone sounds so trivial. Many experience greater pain. On its own right, the trauma of a sharp object traveling down the urinary tract is an excruciating experience. Needless to say, I don’t want to go through that again.

During the most intense time of my suffering, both medications and various bodily positions couldn’t comfort my pain. I was left with two options. Honestly, the first option appealed to my human instinct and came naturally. I could grin and bear it, all the while asking, “Why me?” “This isn’t fair!” and “God, what have I done to deserve this?”

On the other hand, my soul had enough sense not to dwell in that line of thinking for too long. After all, my spiritual instinct told me that only God could deliver me, when and how He wanted. So, with as much mental focus as I could muster, I appealed to the goodness, faithfulness, and love of the God I know through Jesus Christ.

Just over 36 hours later, the waves of pain began to subside. Each minute seemed like an eternity. The wait for “the birth” begin, one day, then two days. Would it come? What would I still face? As my body began to recover from it’s internal thrashing, I finally passed the stone with little fanfare.

It was over. The most physically painful event in my life was now behind me. Torture and nightmare are words that came to my mind more that once during this experience. And again, “What is the purpose of having a kidney stone?” “Why?”

My response to “the passing” was more subdued than is often true of my expressive personality. I didn’t shout or jump (are you kidding). I sat with a sense of thankfulness to a loving God.  In His timing and with purposes beyond my understanding, He had shown His sustaining grace.

But still, “What is the purpose?” Well, I don’t know. Maybe life is not about me but rather about God and His glory.

A transformation has begun to solidify in my soul. Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 4:16-18, “Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what us unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.” These words have comforted many throughout the ages, perhaps because they encourage a life lived with a different motivation. They inspire destiny.

In God’s economy (of which all humanity is subject), there will be some sort of scale of justice where our experiences in this life will be weighed against or compared to the heaviness of God’s glory, literally His presence (glory means “heavy”). As a speck of sand on the seashore, the trials of this life will fade into obscurity compared to what we’ll experience when we enter into our intended destiny with God.

In God’s perfect timing a quote from CS Lewis came my way. In his fictional work, The Great Divorce, Lewis describes characteristics of heaven and hell. One character says, “All the loneliness, anger, hatreds, envies, and itchings that this [world] contains, if rolled into one single experience and put into the scale against the least moment of the joy that is felt in Heaven would have no weight that could be registered at all.”

We have “options.” As Americans, as I do, we become accustomed to a life of ease and comfort. Maybe that’s why suffering impacts us so differently than people in other parts of the world. Our world (including our body) is broken. God, one day, will fix them both. Until then, in times of suffering, great or small, may I reach in trust toward the greater goal of God’s glory and not rebel toward my so-called “human right” to understand or know why God brings things into my experience. The latter is but a vapor. The former has value and hope for eternity.

After all, it’s just a kidney stone.

Leslie Gregory