The Crucifixion by Albrecht Altdorfer.
Special to United Methodist Insight | April 1, 2026
My wife, Jo, took me to the emergency room recently after two nights of excruciating abdominal pain, which included the most wretched retching I have ever experienced. As I was walking the floor for hours and hours, I found myself crying out to Jesus for relief.
The pain was so bad I could not lie down or sit still for more than a few moments. I walked and I prayed desperately. I repeated the 23rd psalm, remembering times I had recited it at the bedsides of parishioners who were in pain or dying:
“Yea though I walk through the Valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me…”
Over and over again…
But I “WAS” afraid. I feared the pain would never stop.
I told the doctor I thought it was food poisoning, perhaps some ham I had eaten in a sandwich at lunch.
The doctor thought it was diverticulosis. But after a CT Scan he came into the treatment room with a smile and announced that I was giving birth to a small kidney stone. He said it was very close and would soon pass.
There will be no reveal party. But my beloved caregiver and I are pondering a name for this unwelcome invader. I am leaning toward AGONY. A friend suggested Agonista, derived from the Greek, Agonistes, a character in literature engaged in a struggle or combat. That fits.
The nice nurse in the ER told me that kidney stone pain is worse than childbirth, something I never needed to know. Pain relievers have restored my sanity.
They have a wonderful menu of pain relievers in the ER. When they asked me which one I would like, I said I drew the line at heroin. A super-duper ibuprofen delivered intravenously gave glorious relief in just a few minutes. I said, “I’ll have some of that to go.”
As I write these words, I am still waiting for the stone to drop. This brings to mind the first time I saw a cow drop a calf, when I was four years old. I had waited, seemingly forever, to witness one of these blessed events, and was never in the barn when it happened.
Then one day Dad came into the house and said, “Johnny, it’s time. Bessie is calving, but we are going to have to help.” What I was about to witness was no ordinary birth. The calf was coming breech. Its hooves and legs were part way down the chute. Dad explained that usually the head came first and that we would have to hurry to help Bessie before the baby suffocated.
Dad knew just what to do. He reached up into the birth canal to reposition the legs. Then he got some bailor twine, tied it around the calf’s legs, and we began to pull. This was heady stuff for a four-year-old boy who had no memory of the last time he had been in a delivery room.
It all came out well, and little Sammy was soon on his feet and nuzzling his mom’s udder. The sight of Bessie eating the placenta was disconcerting, though. I was to learn years later, in high school Ag class, that this was perfectly natural and healthy.
Happily, I was to witness many normal births during my years on the farm. And this is what I am hoping for my little stone, though so far none of it seems normal.
I now understand better what Jo endured during those agonizing days when she waited for the births of our children. Years ago, while writing a sermon about pain, I asked her, “What is the worst pain you have ever had?” Without hesitation she replied, “Child birth! It hurt so much I reached a point where I decided I couldn’t go on, and then I did because I had to.”
Having been there for the births of both of our children, and helplessly witnessing those moments of agony, I was not surprised by her answer, only the quickness and emphatic certainty with which she spoke.
Pain is a normal part of every life. Toothaches, migraines, kidney stones, broken bones, back spasms, dislocations, stomach disorders, loss of limbs, burns, abrasions, heart pain, cancer, withdrawal from addiction; the list of potential bodily malfunctions is interminable. There is no part of the body that is immune from distress. Those who live with chronic illness may endure continual pain to the point that every waking moment is a desperate search for relief.
Dr. Paul Brand, a renowned British surgeon and author wrote that though “pain is not something that most of us would count as a blessing, it is essential to our well-being.” He said, “… pain truly is one of God’s great gifts to us,” and that “as an indicator that lets us know something is wrong, pain has a value that becomes clearest in its absence.”
I was not coherent enough to appreciate any of this reasonable need for pain as I walked the floor those two terrible nights. I was way beyond reason. I could only cry out to God like a little child pleading with a parent:
“Make it stop!”
I begged Jesus to help me. I know he understands excruciating pain. Images of the crucifixion, the nails, the flogging and the crown of thorns flashed through my head.
Rev. Steven Charleston, retired Episcopal bishop and Choctaw elder. (Courtesy Photo)
Steven Charleston, a Choctaw Indian and retired Episcopal bishop, writes: “We are not exempt from pain, those of us who call ourselves people of faith. We have no secret to share about how to expect the unexpected… We are as vulnerable as any human being. The invitation to believe is not a ticket out of suffering and sorrow… Faith will not make life hurt less, but it will give those hurts a different place in life… Faith can turn wounds into witness…”
Boy, will I have a witness to share if I can survive this agonizing birth.
It has been five days now since the pain began. I am thinking of going back to the emergency room, and if I can find that doctor, I may grab him by the throat and demand he explain what he meant when he said, my kidney stone would “soon pass.”
How soon is soon?
Post Script: The very next day before I could send this column to my editor, the blessed event happened. The stone (AKA Agony) was delivered at 9:05 A.M., six days after the excruciating pain began. It is a tiny little thing, but hard as a rock. Oh, what a relief it is. Thank you Jesus! Now it goes to the Kidney Stone Analysis Center for testing to determine what needs to change in my diet to prevent future agonies.
John Sumwalt is a retired pastor and the author of “Shining Moments: Visions of the Holy in Ordinary Lives.” Write to him at W172 N7735 Shady Ln #932, Menomonee Falls, WI 53051, email johnsumwalt@gmail.com, phone 414-339-0676.
John will be preaching at the Greendale Community United Church of Christ Church at 9:30 a.m. Sundays, April 12 & 19, 6015 Clover Ln, Greendale, WI Phone 414-421-1221.
Photo Captions:
Steven Charleston is an elder of the Choctaw Nation and the retired Episcopal bishop of Alaska: “We are not exempt from pain, those of us who call ourselves people of faith…The invitation to believe is not a ticket out of suffering and sorrow…”
Crucifixion by Albrecht Altdorfer, circa 1514–1516
Christ Crucified, 1632 painting by Diego Velázquez. It is the most famous religious painting in Spain. The work is displayed in the Museo del Prado.
Christ at the Column by the Italian Renaissance artist Antonello da Messina, executed c. 1476–1478, showing the Flagellation of Christ. It is in the Louvre in Paris.
The stories in scripture give guidance and help us to find meaning in insufferable pain. Mary must have been reeling as she made her way to the tomb that first Easter morning. She had suffered with Jesus through his painful death, the helpless agony of one who can only watch and wait for the suffering of a loved one to end. Jesus' death, when his life was finally "finished," must have come as a relief, followed by the deeper pain of the finality of his absence.
Photo Captions:
Jo examines a painting of the Menomonee Falls waterfall in the lobby of the Emergency Room at Ascension Hospital in Menomonee Falls.