This is the day after the "Big Tooth Extraction Adventure" and I feel pretty good. I actually chewed some mixed nuts and dried fruit and raisins on the opposite side of the extraction. Didn't do any damage to myself. I did take a couple of ibuprofen about noon.

One of the things that I do is write Christian fiction for a site called FaithWriters. Their topic of the week was to write something for the teen/young adult set. Less than one day before the deadline, I am proud to announce that I finished a story for their Challenge contest. If mine is one of the top ten, it will get printed in an anthology they put out about four times a year. I think I have had about fourteen of my stories selected in the past. Someday I would like to write down these story ideas that stir my brain and get them published as books. But doesn't everyone have a story to tell? Do you?

Tonight is church night; the adults have prayer time, the young ones have activities, and then is worship practice. I play the clarinet on the worship team.

Until tomorrow.

I've been to see the dentist today to have a tooth extracted. I should actually say to have the remains of a tooth taken out.

The story of this adventure goes back two years when I had root canals on my two bottom right molars. Both had to have buildups and crowns, one porcelain and one gold.

Spin forward to December 2006. A college age girl in our church made homemade caramels and offered me one. I stuck it in the right side of my mouth and began to chew. I felt something pulling. The porcelain crown didn't come off but pained me for one or two days until I ground my teeth to try to push it back onto the tooth. It worked, or so I thought.

Now I'm not one that flosses regularly (the real reason for all my dental agony, I'm sure) but the dental hygienist had scared me at one cleaning when she said the ominous words, "If your gums don't begin to heal from gingivitis, we may have to send you to see someone for gum restoration." Ack!

I determined that I was going to begin flossing every day. When I put the floss between the two molars that had the crowns and tried to take it back out, the porcelain crown went flying along with a few tooth fragments. Oddly enough, the buildup amalgum stayed in place.

Two weeks went by and I was scheduled for another cleaning. The hygienist, without any effort at all, lifted the buildup off the tooth, exposing the rootless part of the tooth and a ridge of tooth that remained.

Today was the appointment to extract all that remaining tooth. You must understand before I go any farther that I am an enormous chicken heart when it comes to dentistry. The female dentist I go to has done a lot to help me over much of my fear. At least I haven't subconsciously spaced out two appointments or almost fainted in the reception area while waiting for a cleaning like I did with the last dentist we used to do business with.

Even so, with this extraction I requested the nitrous oxide. Have you ever noticed how wonderful that stuff makes you feel?

"You're going to feel a little pressure now," the good dentist says, and I feel like saying, "That's okay. Do whatever you want. I'm mellow."

Before I became a teetotaler (uh, that means I don't drink anymore . . .nada) I drank. Nitrous oxide makes you feel almost the same way.

The tooth came out so quickly that my husband waiting for me in the reception area couldn't believe it. The novacaine took about five hours to completely wear off.

About an hour ago we searched the house high and low for ibuprofen, the recommended pain reliever. Do you think we had any? No.

A trip to the discount store and seven dollars later I have fifty tablets at my disposal. I already took two and the pain has lessened considerably.

Now to try to find some soft food that I can have. My stomach is rumbling in a not-so-friendly way that it feels neglected.

Oh, the good news about all of this? Because the crown was only in my mouth for two years, the dentist extracted my tooth free of charge. Our insurance company had done something crazy with our billing and we ended up having at least fifty dollars credit built up with the dentist office, so even the nitrous oxide was free.

Have you had any experiences with dentists that you want to share? Leave a comment about it.

Until tomorrow.

Since July 2006, I have been strangely silent from this blog and I apologize. I don't know exactly why I stopped writing here, but I remember that I sank into the dregs of depression for quite a while.

Have you ever been depressed? I don't mean the garden-variety, feeling-a-little-blue-today depression. What I felt was more like a day after day paralysis of the mind that left me weary, bitter, and hateful of the very core of my being.

I despised being that way and couldn't find the footholds to climb up out of the pit into which I had descended.

Then in the early weeks of October a family who travels on the road to deliver messages to churches visited our church. The mother of the family spoke words over me that drove away the depression. She said that in my heart she saw tiny pebbles of bitterness that had lodged there over time. She told me to sit down and remember each of the times in which someone hurt me, then tell the Lord that I forgave them. As I did so, I felt change in the innermost part of my being. She prophesied that I would have joy springing up from within instead of what I had been living with for months. Who wouldn't want to be on the receiving end of that?

Something I have discovered since that time and the thought with which I will end this post: Joy is not an automatic response to the dawn of each new day. Joy is a choice, just as taking on burdens of guilt and bitterness is a choice. Joy is freedom; depression is bondage. Joy can override any financial woe, physical pain, or loss in this world if we let it.

I know this sounds simple. Believe me when I say that I know how difficult it is to respond in a positive way to a message like this. You're probably saying, "Well, that's easy for you. You don't know my life and my struggles."

No, I don't. Have you ever read a list of the top ten stressors which can lead to physical as well as mental distress? In the past fifteen years I have lost a baby, my Dad, my sister-in-law, a close friend, my husband's cousin, two uncles, an aunt. . .do you understand? We have been through financially tight times, I have miscarried and had major surgery to remove an ovary that proved not to be cancerous. We have one vehicle which my husband needs for work, and he works twelve hour shifts. I am pretty much at home most of the time. Do I know what it feels like to be depressed?

But I know the Lord who removed the pebbles from my heart can do the same for you. If you want I will pray for you. Just leave a comment.

Til tomorrow.