This morning I went to the dentist. First time in something like six years. Which, apparently, isn’t the healthiest decision when you like Recess as much as milk. But this visit wasn’t my idea.
It was God’s.
One of His unpredicted open doors that I’m supposed to walk through no matter how much I’d rather scream and run the other way.
They were very nice at the dentist office. Their welcome turned to downright enthusiasm when they heard I was headed for Haiti. “Well,” said the lady who was getting my dental hygiene bag ready, “since you’re going to Haiti for awhile, I’ll throw in a little extra.”
“Oh, how nice,”I thought.
What I didn’t know was how much extra she was throwing in. Three toothbrushes, five packs of dental floss, three tubes of toothpaste, and one little bottle of mouth wash.
I feel like I could almost start an orphanage with a stash like that. I’ll have the shiniest teeth in all of Haiti.
I was feeling pretty good right about then. Until the dentist came in and found two cavities. And then led me into a second room with a map of Georgia’s football stadium on one wall and a map of Lake Lanier on the other and absolutely nothing interesting painted on the ceiling. I know. I stared at that ceiling for the next 45 minutes. While the very kind doctor stuck a needle in my gums three times and bored into two of my teeth with a power drill. (That’s what it felt like anyhow.)
I began to wonder if this is what it feels like to be tortured. I started differentiating between the various flakes on the ceiling. That one looked like a bunny. That one was a dragon being ridden by a little boy. That one was a worm who wanted to fly, so he called together all the other silk worms and asked them to spin him a parachute, and - oh, dear. I probably shouldn’t be telling you this.
In the end, the cavities were filled. The dentist didn’t even charge for one of them. “It’s my contribution to the cause,” he said. This from a man who’d never seen my teeth before and isn’t very likely to see them again! The friend who took me to the dentist paid the remaining bill.
Did you catch that? Everything was taken care of - half through the kindness of a friend and half by the spontaneous gift of a total stranger. Such rich, beautifully unexpected generosity! Such piercing, fingernails-on-chalkboard pain! And all because I walked through the door God had opened for me.
The more often I walk through His doors, the more I find this to be true. He is generous in ways I haven’t even begun to think of imagining. He gives rich blessings disguised as torment. He digs deep into the tender areas without pausing to ask why I’m flinching so much. He refuses to honor my fearful cringing by passing over a couple little flaws. He works through generosity and pain. Sometimes at the exact same time.
I love knowing He’s doing all this to make me more like Him . . . even if my teeth are still killing me . . .
