The Tooth

I was eating soft food one day and felt a crunch in my mouth.  Something hard in this soft food?  No. A tooth is falling apart.  I have a hole in my tooth.  Dreadful.  Why now God?  I call the dentist office.  The woman who answers, The Protector of the Dentist, gives me an appointment several weeks down the road.  What can I do?  By then the hole will get bigger, food will get in and decay, and then I will suffer terribly, swollen jaw, unable to preach, and die from sepsis.  I am unhinged.  I call the dentist himself.  He is a saint and sees me the next day.  He does a little this and that while explaining to me, first that it is a cap and not a tooth, and it is not going to end in death.  In other words, it was not such a big deal and may be caused by any number of issues that can easily be handled.  As I left the office, singing my alleluias, I realized how different I am from, say, Mary, the mother of Jesus.  She went through really touch stuff in bringing Jesus into this world and protecting her infant son.  She did the next right thing.  She pondered things in her heart.  She accepted the difficulties and bore with them with courage and faith and love.  People like her are "saints."  I am not so much a sinner.  I am more pathetic.  Any one out there in blog land saying, "Uh huh?"