But about two hours ago the light throb in my gut shot to a new level and I had 85 minutes of an agony I'll never forget. Mimi's comment when she arrived was, "You are really pale". Fighting the urge to throw up, and feeling beads of perspiration on my forehead, about all I could manage was a whisper.
And then it began to ease. I started getting drowsy, so I came to the couch. In a few minutes the kidney pain was gone. Entirely. I lay there for about 15 minutes, enjoying the delicious relief, second by second. There was no pain, none whatsoever -- it felt so good. I said, "Thank you, Lord", and Rev. 21:4 came to mind. The thought woke me up completely and I reached for the laptop to write, and that's what I'm doing . . .
There are some Christian friends reading this who are in pain, or know somebody who is. The agony may be much longer term than mine appears to be, even life threatening. They are the ones I hope to encourage.
There is a moment coming, that will arrive in the blinking of an eye, when "neither shall there be any more pain" (Rev 21:4) will become a reality. That freedom will feel so very good, so wonderfully sweet. It will swallow up the nasty memories and take away all their ugliness--not for a little while, or even for a long time, but forever!
Intense pain is horrible, for the Christian as well, but we can thank the Lord Jesus even as we shut our eyes and clench our teeth, because of the blessed hope.
Gotta quit, I think I feel something coming on again. Thanks for praying.