lessons from the dental chair

My first dentist visit in half a decade was not a welcomed one. I had a dull pain in my top left molars that was too strong to ignore, so to the chair I went. It was 90 minutes of white-knuckled clinching to the arm rests and wincing in pain. Not fun at all.
The experience, however, got me thinking. There HAS to be a metaphor somewhere in a visit to the dentist… so here are some rough thoughts:

As young Lisa (the hygienist given the tall task of my teeth cleaning) pried 5 years of calculus from my fragile, hemorrhaging gums, she wisely told me I had to feel the pain to get rid of the pain. So true, Lisa… so true. In fact, after her extraction, I am indeed pain-free. Thanks!
Fredrick Buechner in his book “Telling Secrets” talks about his life and how his father committed suicide when Fredrick was young and how that drastically changed his life. You can imagine how that might have an impact. I can’t even begin to fathom the pain that he must have experienced and the heartache he went through. And yet, he says this:

Who knows how I might have turned out if my father had lived, but through the loss of him all those long years ago I think that I learned something about how even tragedy can be a means of grace that I might never have come to any other way…
…The saddest things that happened long ago will always remain part of who we are just as the glad an gracious things will too, but instead of being a burden of guilt, recrimination, and regret that make us constantly stumble as we go, even the saddest things can become, once we have made peace with them, a source of wisdom and strength for the journey that still lies ahead.

Finding grace in pain, that is the mark of a man of faith, and that is what Lisa was telling me. I needed to go through the pain of extraction in order for the long-term pain of infection to cease. Sure, life would be different, if not easier, without the pain of stuff jammed in between my teeth, but now I know how it feels to have tooth pain, and I appreciate NOT having it all the more. The simplest of tasks- chewing- was difficult for the past three days, now I rejoice every time I bite without pain. I exult in pain-free chewing! Never would I have done that had I not gone through a time when chewing was painful. Pain in our lives makes us look at even the most mundane tasks and privileges and has us treat them for what they are: glorious gifts of God.

There is a reason why I have avoided the high pitched squeals and suction straws of my local D.D.S. I hate them. I hate the idea of someone prying in my mouth, I hate the noises, I hate the pain, I hate the condescending tone of, “you need to brush for two minutes twice a day, mmkay?” Truth be told, I would have avoided it for another 5 years if this abscess wouldn’t have flared its ugly head. But the fact of the matter is, if I was to go more often it wouldn’t be so bad. If I would have kept up with the every 6 month office visits, the pain would have been minimal, at most. The condescension would have been saved for the next guy, and the visit would have been 20 minutes and routine. The things I hate about the dentist are the very things I brought upon myself. Of course there are those people who floss after every meal, brush 3 times a day, and never go longer than 180 days between office visits. Those people can sit back and tell me how the dentist is no big deal and I’m over reacting. Their experience at the Smile Center is much different than mine. I’m there out of guilt and unyielding pain. They’re there for fun, genuine concern and responsibility, and vanity.

So too, people hate going to church. I’ve been blessed to never have that feeling (longer than a week or two, I suppose) because it’s always been part of my culture. I never miss a week. Granted, I work at a church, so that’s kind of cheating, but even when I didn’t church was a top priority in my life. I know church to be a place of fun, family, faith, and food, both spiritual and earthly (in the decadent Bavarian-crème filled variety)…

That is not the case for so many people! They are in church because they were guilted into it or because they think they have to or because they want to look good, whatever the motivation it’s not to maintain a healthy faith life. Not only that, but there are people who are afraid of church. They’re afraid of being yelled at, afraid of being shown their sin. I hear that and I smile and say, “No, church is fine, you’re just over reacting!” But that’s because I don’t miss a visit. I lack the ability to put myself in the shoes of someone who hasn’t been there for a while, who is clinging tight to the arm handles because he’s in a place he doesn’t want to be.
May God break my heart for those who are not part of a church home. May I seek out the lost and disenfranchised. May I remember what it felt like to go into those dental doors for the first time in years and feel the pain and humiliation of a 21 year old pointing out my dirty stains. May I never forget that my experience at church is unlike anyone else’s, and may it be my ambition in life to meet people where they are at so that coming to God with a contrite heart resembles in no way me coming to Dr. Huyng with a throbbing jaw.

These are just raw thoughts of the dentist… I have to go back in two weeks, so maybe there will be more… you can only be so lucky! 