I have just endured-am enduring-one of the hardest months of my life. It began with a pre-Christmas visit to an oral surgeon to have an impacted wisdom tooth removed. It went well and I went home, but within a week I was visiting the dentist to get some relief. "Dry socket," he said. "Very painful. Takes time."

Shortly after New Year’s I returned and received much the same diagnosis. By mid-January varying types of pain had migrated to places far beyond the extraction site and the whole right side of my head was affected. At times I was totally incapacitated, clutching my face and doubling over. A few episodes of this each day is no picnic. I haven’t been eating well. I haven’t been sleeping well. Painkillers that don’t kill the pain numb my mind. The prayers of God’s people don’t make a physical difference.

I look to the Psalms for comfort, and manage to sneak a verse out of context to describe my travail: "I am weary with my moaning; every night I flood my bed with tears; I drench my couch with my weeping" (Ps. 6:6).

I have since seen specialists and am carrying on as best I can, ever hopeful that the ache will break and life will return to normal. Words like trigeminal nerve and maxillofacial are creeping into my vocabulary. In the meantime, I’m also picking up a few more important things; things I’ve already known but which are coming into much finer (excruciatingly fine) focus.

Pain hurts. My family and co-workers have watched me suffer and extended much kind sympathy and attention. Disturbing as it may be for them to watch me, they don’t really "feel my pain." But since I’m actually experiencing acute pain, I begin to feel a closer bond with others who also suffer. I realize that I am surrounded by love and creature comforts and top-notch medical attention, and it prompts me to think about people who are being tortured or left to languish in squalid conditions for long periods of time. My empathy for them increases. I have a larger (albeit still small) role in the fellowship of suffering.

I also come to realize that as agonizing as physical pain may be, anguish of the soul is deeper and even more debilitating. The sleepless nights of the psalmists are not about simple headaches; they’re more about heartache and soul suffering. And in this I take comfort in my marvelous good fortune-my distress is but skin-deep, for my soul is at peace. Praise God.