Brokenness Today

Yesterday we had a great lunch with friends from church who host our Crosswalk Group. That was a great lunch until I took my last bite of salad. The cap on my front tooth split into 3 pieces. I was left with the fang the dentist had carved to attach the cap. There was an immediate foul taste and odor in my mouth which told me the cap had been leaking for some time. I began to fall apart. It was a rough afternoon. The dentist I go to never works on Friday. The what-ifs and if-onlys came parading into my mind, and as little bits of the tooth point crumbled off slowly during the afternoon, it was very difficult to keep from sliding into a sewer of despair.

I look like a jack-o-antern now with this pointy front tooth and many gaps from the missing upper partial. As I pondered this in my prayer time this morning, trying to simply remain open to God, I was struck by my own vanity regarding my looks. I remembered all the homeless and broken women I know and have known who are missing teeth. My financial ability to obtain dental care is the only thing that keeps me from appearing just as they do.

Again, I am being asked to yield to whatever the Lord is asking of me and to gently face truth and reality with my eyes open. As my tear ducts empty again and again in frustration, despair and grief, I see that the author of Ecclesiastes was right - All IS vanity. NAS reads: Vanity of vanities, saith the Preacher; vanity of vanities, all is vanity. Dictionary defines it as the state or quality of being valueless, futile, or unreal. ESV reads: Perfectly pointless, says the Teacher, perfectly pointless. Everything is pointless.

So why do I need to see this now?and what am I to do? Another attitude and condition to let go of. See the pointlessness of all the hooopla we Americans make over appearances in contrast to reality. I have had soft and rotting teeth since I was ten years old. I am almost 62 years old. Many fillings, drillings, attempts to attain that "perfect" smile. I can't bleach my teeth because so many surfaces are not my teeth but caps and crowns, fillings, and who knows what all. I wonder how much Americans are spending on tooth whitening concoctions and how many hungry people could be fed with that amount?

I am praying for the courage to follow where ever I am led. I did not have the energy or courage to go to my stitching group today. I do not know if I have the courage to go to church tomorrow. Maybe spending this weekend getting my bearings again, listening in prayer, doing my paperwork will help me walk out whatever next week holds with more courage and peace.

 

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