Dull It Down

I really dislike the dentist. It hasn't always been so. The dentist I went to as a child actually wasn't that bad. I even remember looking forward to going because they had an awesome train set in the lobby to play with, and I usually came away from the appointment with a toy. But one unfortunate day changed it all. It was this very same dentist that started drilling on a tooth without any numbing medication. Now, I'm a pretty tough cookie, but I'm not the type of person who at the young age of twelve could handle that. It's a scary thing. So, for years, I've done my best to avoid the dentist.  Well, I've tried to avoid any doctor. And now I'm paying for it. I have a series of intense dentist appointments ahead of me. But luckily, my dear father has found someone who is doing their best to not freak me out. And so far, it's going well. I had an appointment last week that was well over five hours long, and thanks to some wonderful medication, it felt like forty-five minutes. It was a double root-canal and an extraction. That's quite a traumatic experience.  And what's even better, I don't remember anything, but vague bits and impressions.

After sleeping all of the drugs out of my system, and I tried to piece things together, I realized that I was blissfully unaware of what had taken place the day before. Even my pain level wasn't that bad. That's when I started to think about how nice it would be to numb the pain of trials in life and sleep through the rest. Now I know this is unrealistic and unhealthy, but some experiences seem unnecessary to me.  Especially the ones that I seem to live over and over again.  It would be nice for Heavenly Father to say 'Ok, you have to do this hard thing. But I'm going to give you this medicine, and we'll get through this. You won't remember a thing, and you won't feel that bad on the other side.' But that's not how He works. You need to feel the pain and let time act as Novocain, slowly dulling the ache. There is some lesson to be learned, or if nothing else, it makes you stronger.

Strength doesn't make you invincible, and it doesn't make you feel the pain any less. But I think it might make you a bit more graceful through the storm. However, grace doesn't mean you don't want to throw a kicking-and-screaming fit, which I have actually done recently. Life isn't fair, and I don't like to take it sitting down.  I just had my heart broken, and I know I didn't handle the situation with as much poise as I would have liked. It's a story I will tell, but not for awhile. And I know in the eternities, these trials that seem to stretch on forever are but seconds.  Time is slowly working its healing magic on the wounds I have sustained. They won't be completely forgotten and the battle scars will remain, but in the end, the experience won't be as traumatic as it seems….well, hopefully.