Root for the Dentist

By Mollie Bond –

Rubbing my hands, I cried in my idling car. Clinging to the dentist chair hurt my hands, and, coupled with the extra two hours for a cavity filling, I was ready for a good cry. The dentist had to re-do the same tooth three times because the filling kept popping off. Closing my eyes, I tried to dream of a far away place, and not think of the metallic taste and the “pinch” of more Novocain. Eventually, the dentist skipped the Novocain for lack of time, and the “pinch” became a sharp pain I felt in my gut.

No one likes to cry after visiting the dentist. I’ve had my share of poor experiences. The oral surgeon waited to remove my wisdom teeth because I couldn’t stop crying when they gave me the “knock-out” gas. I have what’s been deemed “slick teeth,” and it makes filling cavities fun. As fun as sitting for hours in an uncomfortable chair next to a jack-hammer in a construction zone. That’s the way it is. I have a problematic mouth.

My friend, Tina Crown, also has a problematic mouth. For years, she had one cavity. One little, teeny, tiny cavity. Not a big deal; no real problems. Tina and her husband, Todd, went to a new dentist. Neither felt surprised by the two root canals Todd needed. He often has work to be done. She went in next, expecting to hear glowing reports of her dental hygiene for the tenth year in a row. Instead, the dentist said, “Mrs. Crown, you also need a root canal.” The new dentist found a cavity under the old filling. The original cavity wasn’t completely removed and had festered for years, while she assumed her mouth was clean. Add one more crown to the Crowns’ dental budget.

What in life is problematic? What has been covered, and needs a deep cleaning? Let the Heavenly Dentist take a look around, even in those places that might hurt.

PRAYER: God, I think things are hunky-dory with my fillings, but I’m ready for a checkup. Does a hole exist underneath? Do I need to refine my daily cleaning routine? Will you take a look around? I’m ready for a root canal, even if it hurts. Thank You for wanting to help me be healthy and holy.

“My eyes are on all their ways; they are not hidden from me, nor is their sin concealed from my eyes” (Jeremiah 16:17 NIV).

I Am

By Makenzie Allen –

I am Makenzie Brook Allen. My name means little warrior of God. I am a daughter, sister, grandchild, niece, and friend. A passion of mine since I craved pacifiers and had a “blanky,” is creation. That’s probably the explanation for why my first word was “woof,” as in dog noises. It’s also most likely why I know for a fact chipmunks have at least three noises when communicating, and the reason I know this is because I confess to having attempted conversation with one. So now that my sanity is in question, I’ll also point out I do in fact have a life and God living in and through me is the only reason I am not too many eggs short of a birthday cake.

My identity, who I am, is all because of what God has placed in my life. Strangely enough, I’m thankful for the rough times in life. The times when I feel alone and broken. Almost as if I’ve built myself one way and the Lord comes and says, “No, we need to start over with this.” And I feel like everything I’ve built my life around comes crashing down. Then, the Lord comes and rebuilds my life for me. He comes and rebuilds my life right.

My memories pull me back to a time and place where I felt desperately alone. So alone, the light in my eyes hardly shone and my laugh was misplaced. I remember the bowed head and the heavy drag to my feet. How does one move on from this solitude?Where has my joy gone? I racked my mind night and day for some hint as to where my joy had departed. Answers to solve my feelings of loneliness and stolen joy had fled like thoroughbreds out of the starting gate. And I was the one left to stand frozen, helpless, as those answers ran around just outside of my reach. One thought reverberated through my mind nonstop, How will I find what I’ve lost?

Time moved on, but my burdened soul could not. It stayed, unwilling to let time take its toll. I acknowledged I was broken and could no longer try to sustain the world I had made for myself. Every last ounce of my determined, structured, goals had been demolished. I felt detached. People had moved on. But I stayed, alone. Except for One. He stayed too, waiting patiently for the day I would relent from my terrible building-and-repair job. When I would hand Him the tool belt, because only He knew how long I had pounded nails with the wrong end of the hammer and measured in centimeters instead of inches. Finally, I saw Him waiting, lovingly holding out His nail-scarred hand for the tool belt.

God’s repairs in my life were hard to swallow at first. But He built me from the ground up. The Lord was giving me a new identity, one built with hands of expertise. My character was no longer attached to what I had done or who I had tried to be, it was ground solidly as my identity in Christ. He is my Lord, and nothing could divide me from that relationship. Neither height nor depth could ever separate me from the love of Jesus Christ. All I can say is thank you Lord for rebuilding my life to be firmly rooted in You.

I am Makenzie Brook Allen, loved by the Maker of things seen and unseen. I am a daughter of the King, cared for by Him who wears scars proclaiming His love for me with pride. My identity is in Him. I am His. Forever.

“For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do” Ephesians 2:10 (NIV).

God and Dr. Suess

By Cheri Cowell –

I love Dr. Seuss! At Universal’s Islands of Adventure theme park there’s a whole section dedicated to Seuss-ville. The Cat in the Hat ride tells the story of Thing 1 and Thing 2 and the destruction they create while Mom is gone. They do all the things Mom told them not to do and create a big huge mess while doing it. Then they hear Mom coming, and in a flash clean everything up just in time for her to walk through the door.

I believe we like that story so much because each of us harbors that rebellious spirit. Even though we know what to do, we choose to continue to disobey and do things we know we ought not to. We play this sort of cat and mouse (no pun intended) with God, hoping we can clean up our messes just in time for Him to walk through the door. It doesn’t work that way in real life, and we know it.

This is one of the scriptures that the popular “Left Behind” book series is based upon. Don’t get caught up in the details of this passage. God is not giving us “hints” so we can figure out when to expect Him. Jesus makes the point that life will seem to be going on as usual when His Second Coming will take place. Will we be rushing around trying to clean things up, or will we be ready?

“But about that day or hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. As it was in the days of Noah, so it will be at the coming of the Son of Man. For in the days before the flood, people were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, up to the day Noah entered the ark; and they knew nothing about what would happen until the flood came and took them all away. That is how it will be at the coming of the Son of Man. Two men will be in the field; one will be taken and the other left. Two women will be grinding with a hand mill; one will be taken and the other left. “Therefore keep watch, because you do not know on what day your Lord will come” (Matthew 24:36-42 NIV).

PRAYER: Thank You, God, that You will indeed return at the perfect time. Help me to be the faithful servant; ready, taking care of Your people, not seeking self-serving pleasures. Then help me become someone You can safely put in charge of “all Your possessions.”

Blurring the Ancient Boundaries

By DiAne Gates –

Mother often recited, “I don’t build fences to keep you in. I build fences to keep bad stuff out.” But it sure felt like I was being detained.

Until I grew up and had my own children.

God sets boundaries for His kids too. Not to hold us captive, but to keep us safe. He’s the great protector, not the cosmic killjoy.

In the late ‘70’s, my kids were third and sixth graders in a public school that became the battleground to guerrilla warfare waged against children in the classroom.

Comments slipped from their mouths, and at first we responded, “They’re just kids.”

One afternoon our third grader retorted, “My teacher says I don’t have to mind you. You’re old. I can do what I feel like doing.”

What teacher in their right mind would tell that to a child? We instructed our daughter, “Your teacher wouldn’t say that. You need to be quiet and listen.”

But other parents voiced the same concerns when their kiddos came home with the same rhetoric. The teacher really taught these lies and the kids acted on her instruction.

We discovered the guidance counselor held classes with every kid, in all grades, each week. The School Board and school allowed this counselor to use a book not approved by the State Text Book Committee. A book not even on the list of books from which they could choose.

We tracked the publication to another school, borrowed it, and called a meeting for the parents of our elementary school. A reporter from a local newspaper, met with us and we previewed the book, DoSo The Dolphin, taught at the elementary school. The middle school taught Total Affective Behavior.

DoSo the Dolphin taught you could do anything you wanted if you had a good reason for doing it. One example in the book was this. “Little Johnny told a lie. But Little Johnny had a very good reason for telling this lie. What would you do if you were Little Johnny?” This lesson encouraged children not to go to their parents for answers, but to come to their “Magic Circle,” group, where they would find understanding. This book was used in grades 1 through 5.

Middle school kids were exposed to survival games—taught to make life and death decisions based on a person’s worth to society. This teaching became known as Situation Ethics. The situation you’re in determines the ethics you use.

The question remains: Is God’s Word truth? Is there absolute truth? Satan asked Eve in the garden, “Did God really say that?” And the blurring continues since that day in the garden.

Fast forward to 2012. We are dealing with high school shootings, drugs, gangs in schools, teen pregnancies, abortions, alarming STD rates, and an overcrowded prison system. We have raised a generation of adults who were taught in schools, “If it feels good, do it.” How can we expect them to have a moral or spiritual compass?

This brainwashed generation is raising children of their own with few, if any, boundaries. Where do we go from here? Are parents and grandparents failing our children and grandchildren in this society? Are we teaching them the Word of God?

God constructed the fence of His Statutes and Ordinances for His children, but His rebellious kids catapult over those walls of protection and find themselves in places they thought would bring freedom and joy, but instead bring destruction.

Were you a student in the classroom during this deceptive teaching or do you know people who were? How did it affect you? Please join the conversation.

“Arise, cry aloud in the night at the beginning of the night watches; Pour out your heart like water before the presence of the Lord; Lift up your hands to Him for the life of your little ones. . .” (Lamentations 2:19 NAS).

A New Twist on the List

By Hally Franz –

I made a bold move during the Christmas season of 2012. After years of considering, even threatening this particular change, I made the move. I did not send cards, letters or pictures out for the holiday – no festive stamped correspondence at all. It was a tough thing to give up. I like the tradition and enjoy receiving greetings from friends and family, but this season I felt I could spend my time better in other ways.

So, as we begin 2013, I am going to expand this mindset of reducing. Typically, my resolutions are in the form of tasks I hope to accomplish in the New Year. I resolve to: cook healthier meals for my family, maintain a regular routine of exercise, complete scrapbooks for our family’s last ten years of vacations, read more, write more, clean out my basement and so on. The list is pretty much the same each year, because the same tasks usually remain undone from year to year.

This year, I am staging a revolt against the standard resolution list that I make annually. Perhaps, “revolt” is too strong a word. I am not really a revolt kind of girl. Given the fact that I just used the word “girl” to describe myself, I may be delusional, but revolutionary I am not. Let’s call it a simple rebellion.

My 2013 resolution is to cut back. For many of us, those working both outside and in the home, our lists of obligations and duties tend to accumulate over time. When I left my school counseling position a few years ago I had an open slate for a time. Soon, though, I had taken on a variety of activities connected with school, church, my kids’ extra-curricular activities and more. Now, I often find myself overwhelmed with tasks and no closer to accomplishing those resolution items that linger.

It’s time to eliminate stuff from my life, both literally and figuratively. I think I will start by examining what I do and why I do it, by really asking if this is something in which I need to continue investing my time and talent.

Maybe you’ll want to give it a try. It’s daring to be sure. I’m committed, though, and when asked what my New Year’s Resolution is for 2013, I’ll proudly announce that I am not taking on anything new; I’m just going to do a lot less!

PRAYER: Lord, guide me to make good choices in my life. Give me wisdom to select the activities and goals that You deem worthy and in accordance with Your plan for me.

“‘Martha, Martha,’ the Lord answered, ‘you are worried and upset about many things, but few things are needed—or indeed only one. Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her.’” (Luke 10:41-42 NIV).

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