Home > Stories >

Open Wide!

By Guy K. Henry

www.guyhenry.com

There are not many things that make me afraid. I manage to subdue most of my fears. However, there is one place where my fear gets the best of me. That place is the dentist’s office.

Most likely this fear was born in my childhood at an old time dentist’s office in Babylon, New York.  I am sure that this man was a nice fellow, but his technique was a little rough. I suspect that he was absent the day that they covered Novocain, because he never used it. To make matters worse, I saw another dentist during my high school years who should have had his license fed into a paper shredder.

At the expense of having teeth like Austin Powers’, my visits to the dentist have been infrequent. For the longest time I was certain that the only way I’d ever return to the torture chair was if someone came to my home, knocked me out, and dragged me to the dentist’s office.

I was wrong. There was one other way that I’d find myself under the dental spotlight again.

About ten years ago I awoke one morning with a dull pain in the left-top-backmost part of my jaw. As the day went on the pain went from a nagging one to a gnawing one.  Hoping to avoid the dentist, I took every sort of pain pill I could get without a prescription. I took Aspirin, Tylenol, Motrin, and Aleve, all at the same time! At first they masked the pain. After a few days the pain returned, in spite of taking the maximum doses of the pain pills. Now, I would not recommend such pharmacological stupidity to anyone. I justified the assault to my system with the hope that the pain would magically go away. I’d have done anything to avoid a trip to the dentist.

What eventually motivated me to look up the telephone number of the dentist was not the pain. It seems that after a number of days of neglecting the problem, the left side of my face began to swell.

Strangers would ask, “What is wrong with your face?”

“That must hurt.” People would say.

Finally, I called the dentist after a small child saw me and started crying, “Wah! Look at the scary man!”

I found a mirror. It was scary!

Friends had recommended a dentist by the name of Dr. Kling. He is a retired Army dentist who works out of his home. The fact that my friends spoke so highly about him didn’t impress me. He was still a dentist, right?

When I called, Dr. Kling’s wife told me to come right over. I was really hoping for a few more days to get ready for the visit.

I drove to the office. I don’t remember if there was a waiting room, because as soon as Mrs. Kling saw me she ushered me into the exam room. I felt faint as I saw the dental chair.

“Have a seat,” she said too joyfully. “The doctor will be here in about ten minutes.”

Why did she have to tell me that? As soon as she closed the door, I glanced at my watch to start the countdown. I reached into the shopping bag I had brought, and made some preparations.

“Six minutes,” I thought as I forced myself into the chair.

A few more preparations later I looked at my watch. “Three minutes!”

With that the door flew open, and in came the dentist. I wanted to exclaim, “You are early!”

Dr. Kling took a look at me sitting in the chair and smiled. He must have noticed my white knuckles clutching the arms of the chair.

“Mr. Henry,” he calmly said.

“Uh huh,” I grunted.

“Would you be so kind as to remove your ski mask?” he politely asked.

“Rats!” I thought. I had hoped that he’d let me keep the mask. I reached and grabbed the top of it and slowly tugged it off. He took the mask from my hand as his smile grew larger.

“Mr. Henry, you’ll need to unwrap that scarf too.”

This guy meant business! I had wrapped a scarf around my mouth for protection. Reluctantly I fumbled with the knots I had tied, and unwound the scarf. I am pretty sure that the doctor laughed as he took my scarf from me.

“Is that one of my surgical masks?” he asked.

I nodded that it was.

“That needs to come off too,” he said.

I didn’t want to hear that. The mask was a last minute addition to my anti-dentist defense plan. I untied it and he took it from my hands.

“Now, I’ve never seen that before,” he said as he noted the strips of duct tape I had placed over my mouth. “Would you like me to peel those off for you?” he offered.

Through the tape I groaned, “No!” I carefully took the tape off.

Then he said the words I hoped I’d never hear again.

“Mr. Henry,” he said as his wife came into the room. “Open your mouth, open it wide!”

Instead I shut it harder.

“I can’t help you until you open up,” he patiently said as his wife helped him with his gloves.

As I sat in the chair with my mouth tightly closed, my face started to throb with more severe pain than before. I realized that I’d better cooperate. I closed my eyes, and opened my mouth.

Dr. Kling wasted no time. He administered the local anesthetic and had my wisdom tooth out before I knew what had happened.

I can tell you that dental phobia is a real thing. Some of the details of my story have been exaggerated, but the truth is that I become like a little child at the thought of a visit to the dentist’s office. I am not proud of that, but it reminds me of how easy it is to behave like that in the presence of God.

Recently I was reading some difficult verses in Hebrews 12. It speaks of the ‘chastening’ of God. I read things like “For whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth” (verse 6) and “Now no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous: nevertheless afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby.” (verse 11)

I see that God promises to bring us back when we stray. We might not like it when He does, but we grow closer to Him through it.

After reading of the promise of correction, I came to verses 12 and 13. They spoke to my heart.

Hebrews 12:12 says, “Wherefore lift up the hands which hang down, and the feeble knees”.

I am probably not alone when I have acted like this verse said, “Hide your hands which hang down, and hide the feeble knees.” Hands that hang down, and knees that are feeble are pictures of diseased parts of the body. In a spiritual sense these are images of where sin has infected and set up residence in our lives. Are we to hide this from God?

It says ‘lift up’. Instead of concealing this sin, I believe we are encouraged to present it to God. We are to allow Him to deal with it.

Consider my childish ways of keeping the dentist away from my teeth. Don’t we often use similar ploys to keep God from dealing with our lives?

Verse 13 continues, “And make straight paths for your feet, lest that which is lame be turned out of the way; but let it rather be healed.” We are told to do two things. The first is to make straight paths. There are things we can do to help us from falling into sin. Specifically, if an addiction causes us to keep returning to sin, we can and should do things to avoid it. Be it gambling, drinking, drugs, gossip, backbiting or lying, we can often restructure our situation to break the cycle.

Notice the phrase in verse 13, “but let it rather”. Doesn’t that sound like there is a better way? Straight paths are good, but there is something better. “But let it rather be healed.” When we lift our infirmities to the Lord, He will heal us. We probably won’t enjoy the process of healing, much as I still fear the dentist. When the Lord has completed His healing, we will be freed from that sin.

Dr. Kling released me from the pain and infirmity of an abscessed wisdom tooth. God is able to release and heal us from an infection even worse than that. When we present our entire unhidden lives to Him, He promises to heal us.

David prayed an amazing and honest prayer. We can pray it too. It is found in Psalms 139:23 and 24. It says, “Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts: (24)  And see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.”

What did you think? I would love to hear from you. Please leave a comment in my Guest Book. 

The Email address is entirely optional. If you include it, you and I can correspond. I will not use it for any other purpose, nor allow it to be displayed on the internet nor allow anyone else access to it! I hate spam too!

Please note that thanks to SPAMMERS, entries will not be visible in the guestbook until I manually add them.