A Holy Extraction

Six months ago I had my first dental appointment in my new mission area and had some reflections on it titled “God is a Dentist“ (you can read it by clicking the link). God indeed is! This month I had another dental appointment and this time around aside from cleaning, I had a tooth extraction. Everyone who had gone through it probably dreaded the thought of having another one. Well, I did fear but with some careful thoughts I said to myself, I have no other option left, the Dentist already said there is no other way to save it.

We don’t like extraction. We don’t like something to be taken away or extracted from us. It’s easy if it’s the other way around. Extracting is different from giving because extracting means someone else is involved. So giving actually is easier to handle than having someone forcefully extract something from us. But extracting has its own merits specially if it’s the only way for us to be healthy again. It doesn’t have to be physical extraction; it can be spiritual, mental and emotional, were we feel something is taken away from us and it causes us great distress. Take for example we are taken away from family, or a family member is taken away from us. Another is if we will be extracted in the place we already called home and be transferred to another. Situation like this makes us feel something is missing and somehow force us reflect on what is really valuable. It somehow brings us back to our senses and allows us to realize that what matters in life are not the big and complicated things but the small and simple.

Sometimes the Good Dentist, the Lord Himself, can perform holy extraction if only to bring us back to our senses that we have to value the things that are more important to Him than what we think are more important to us. By extracting something, we become healthy again. 

by aats