Wisdom teeth

I am going to get my wisdom teeth out on Feb. 5. At this point I am not nervous and am just ready for those third molars to get broken up and taken out, but yesterday I wasn't so confident...

Matt got his teeth out last year and I remember him telling me that there was a chance he would come out deformed, if the doctor cut a certain nerve that runs along the jaw. I was nervous for him, but decided that I would still love and accept him regardless of what his face looked like. Our love does run much deeper than physical appearances. His surgery turned out fine and I forgot about that risk, until yesterday morning.

I was sitting there talking to God and thinking about my day during breakfast (oatmeal for my heart yesterday) and all I could think about was the risk of having a deformity. I was making myself crazy. What would my face look like? Would I be able to look in the mirror? Would people at Visio Dei be able to take me seriously as a leader if I looked like a freak? Would my husband still find me attractive? Would everyone start feeling sorry for me?

I prayed, I thought to myself, God, you might just do something like this to teach me a lesson, I am sure being vain right now... then I got scared that God was going to spite me, so I started making all of these really spiritual responses in my head as if I could trick God into seeing that I wasn't focused on my external appearance... then I started laughing... and took a deep breath...

God does not spite people. I can trust that. I would be okay even if I was deformed. It might be challenging, but being beautiful isn't what life's about. I was still nervous.

At the dr.'s office I had to watch a video about all the bad things that could happen to you if something went wrong.

The video encouraged you to ask questions.

So, I did.

What would my face look like if you cut my nerve?

The dr. kindly alleviated my stress by saying that I wouldn't look any different. Relief...

Obviously I still have a lot growing to do.