Epiphany in the dentist's chair

I have never liked going to the dentist.
Not ever.
I put off going as long as I can.
If I can avoid it altogether, I usually do.
It is not just because I have had bad experiences (though I have) and because I've had more than my fair chair (I really think I have.) Rather I think that being in the dentist chair is generally something I have found unpleasant that I can actually avoid.
I avoid things sometimes.
Actually, truthfully, I avoid some things as often as I can.
Namely I avoid:

The things I fear.
The subject of my phobias.
Those which lead to crisis.

You are free to put dentistry in any and all of the above categories. I know I do.
So there's the back story.
Fast forward now to a recent Friday when it was no longer possible to put a trip to the dentist off any longer. My pain was greater than my fears and cowardice. I had been up all night fighting all of them.

Perhaps that is what made me susceptible to what happened there in that dentist's chair.
Here's how it happened:

The dentist's assistant asked me if I wanted "laughing gas."
"Will it make me happy?" I asked, for at that moment nothing much was funny.
"It might make you laugh. I does sometimes," she said.
Hence the name, then. I had previously heard it referred to as nitrus(sp).
They begin hooking me up to the that and all the other apparati found there in close proximity.

The nice assistant explains further as she prepares me for work on tooth 31 (I heard them say that.)
Sometimes people really do laugh. We get tickled because sometimes women will tell our dentists how pretty their eyes are." All three of the dentists in the clinic are  handsome, she tells me.

I try to relax, secretly hoping I don't laugh so as to dislodge the apparatus covering my face or snort so as to embarass myself. In a moment, I know they'll be pulling out the big drill that vibrates my whole head (and upper body.)
"Deep breaths," they tell me.
"Sometimes people actually fall asleep," the tech tells me.
Fat chance of that happening, I think... yet if I had, would I close down and create some (un)natural disaster.
I try running through my brain those things on my "to do" list.
I find myself listening to the music playing in the cubile where I lay defenseless, vunerable and more than a little freaked out.
The songs are familiar. I sing along in my head.
The dentist tells the tech that when he has had "laughing gas" he felt like he was flying.
"I believe I can fly", I say to myself (and maybe out loud.)
I have been listening to T.D. Jakes' "Instinct series in my car. I try to focus on butterflies and cocoons.
There is chatter in the space around me. Something about someone having to work on their child's birthday and how torturous that is. I hear words and numbers. I hear that the dental staff prays together, for each other and for their patients.
"Amen," I say in my heart.

Maybe that's when it happened. This thing I really can't explain. The peace that washed over me. Maybe it was the KLOVE radio playing or the calming words of the dentist and his assistant. Maybe it was because I have been  listening to sermons in my car.
Certainly it is not because I have no woes. It is not that I suddenly liked being in the dentist's chair, after all these years of fear and dread.
I remember telling the tech that her mother loves her. I do know her mother but not all that well. and I'm sure her mother loves her, but I'm still not sure what would make me say that.
Maybe it was the laughing gas aka nitrus.
Or maybe, there in the noise and chaos, the things I've been sowing into my spirit began to germinate.
I had my eyes squinched shut so as not to see the dental instruments on the mental tray. I avoided eye contact with both sets of eyes above me for reasons mentioned above.
But there in the dark, I saw the light.
I did not have an out of body experience and I did not fly.
But I did find peace and tranquility I have experienced before only at the beach or in the mountains or a church somewhere.

This is not a paid advertisement. If you ask me who my dentist is, I will gladly tell you. The whole office, in my experience, is professional, competent and very patient oriented. This is about them only in part. It is about me only in small part.
What this is really about, and what I hope you read here, is that by exposing myself and by being exposed, to the things of God, I was able to sense His presence, there with me, in a situation I have always found difficult.

While I am not anxious to return to the dentist, I am not dreading it the way I have for at least a half century. And I am convicted to continue to feed on His Word and to seek His Face.
I know I will be thankful that I have.
There will be difficulties ahead. Jesus promised that.
He also promised to be with us,
He keeps His promises. He is faithful.
That's what this is about.




- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone