The pain had started as a quiet rumble in my side. I lay on my sister's couch, willing the pain to go away. But the rumble grew into a ferocious growl until I felt that my body had ceased to be a body and had become agony. I stared out the window at the darkness of early morning, willing the pain to go away.

After 45 minutes had passed, I knew I needed help. I rolled off the couch in my sister's living room and crawled up the stairs on my hands and knees to her bedroom.

"Renee," I whispered, unable to gather the strength to speak louder. I said her name over and over again. She stayed asleep. I closed my eyes in pain and frustration and rested my forehead against the coolness of the wall.

I said her name one last time and she jerked awake. "I'm having an attack," I said.

As she got dressed, I struggled back downstairs. She soon joined me in the living room, where I lay on the floor, clutching my side.

"Oh, Sweetie," she said. "How long have you been hurting?"

I told her about an hour. The attacks usually lasted four hours, but they had never been so intense before.

"You should go to the hospital," Renee said.

"I don't have insurance," I said.

She spent the next half hour telling me to try different positions to ease the pain. She tried to convince me that I needed a doctor. I kept thinking of the college tuition I needed. I had survived the pain before; I could do it again. "Only a few more hours," I kept telling myself.

Soon the patter of little feet sounded from the stairwell, and I saw my nephew from the corner of my eye.

He stopped and stared at me as I hunched on my hands and knees in an effort to ease the grinding in my side. "Aunt Tyana's sick, Travis. We need to leave her alone," my sister told him.

I looked into his big brown eyes and knew I couldn't let him watch me like this for hours. I agreed to go to the hospital.

A few hours, a couple of doses of painkiller and an emergency ultrasound later, the pain subsided and I had my prognosis: a gall bladder engulfed with gallstones. The doctor recommended I have surgery as soon as possible.

I had to make a decision. I wouldn't be eligible for state insurance for another six months. Should I wait? What would happen if I had an attack while in class? I was going to be the editor of Multnomah Bible College's newspaper. Would the attacks interfere with my duties? Would I end up in the emergency room again, adding to the bills that had started trickling in?

Or should I have the surgery during the summer when I would have time to heal but risk financial ruin?

I decided to get the surgery during the summer. The surgery went smoothly, and I recovered quickly.

But the bills began arriving in the mail. Between the emergency room visit and the surgery, my bills came close to $12,000. I had known the bills would come, but the reality was much worse than I had expected. How was I going to pay all this and still afford college?

After opening one of the last bills, I went to my room to indulge myself with a good cry.

I closed the door behind me. "What am I going to do?" I whispered. "Did I make the wrong choice?"

My eyes passed over a calendar on my wall. I had never noticed the verses scrawled across the bottom of the kitten pictures. Curiosity momentarily suspending my self-pity compelled me to look at it more closely. "Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God" (Philippians 4:6).

The verse changed my perspective. I immediately prayed and felt peace.

Since my surgery, God has provided for me in amazing ways: Money appeared in my mailbox from an anonymous donor, a $400 rebate came as a result of a gift, and the hospital granted me enough financial aid to cut my bills in half. I have paid my bills every month.

I hope in the next session of character building, I will remember to run to the Lord for help. Quickly.