Here’s an experience our Association family might enjoy hearing about. I had a dentist appointment scheduled to get a crown. I already have a few of these and I wasn’t thrilled about getting another one. I had hoped for that appointment where they say “Everything looks fine.”

I had been feeling kind of despondent and worried about the world these days. I don’t remember which event it was that was bugging me the day before the appointment because it seems like every day there is challenging news.

I couldn’t get to sleep and I knew I had to do something about my state of thought so I got out some inspirational readings I had put together on Concord last year. The theme was holding crime in check and the unreality of evil. Here’s one of the passages from Miscellaneous Writings: “If God is Mind and fills all space, is everywhere, matter is nowhere and sin is obsolete. If Mind God is all-power and all presence, man is not met by another power and presence, that – obstructing his intelligence – pains, fetters and befools him.  The perfection of man is intact; whence then is something beside Him that is not the counterpart but the counterfeit of man’s creator? Surely not from God for He made man in His own likeness.”

I went to sleep more peaceful than I had felt in a long time, feeling clearly that God is All-in-all.

When I got to the dentist the next day he looked in my mouth and said “Hmmm…maybe this isn’t as bad as I thought.”  He looked at the x-rays again and said, “There’s a possibility that the decay doesn’t connect with the other area that I thought it did. I’ll know after I drill the old fillings out.” He drilled them out and then decided to just put a new filling in. He’s a very experienced dentist I’ve been going to for 30 years and just two weeks prior he had been sure this was crown-worthy and the insurance company agreed, pre-authorizing it after seeing the x-rays.

What I love about this experience is that I was not working on my tooth!  I have often dwelt on the physical things that need healing, with list of things I need to “work on”.  But this time, by changing my worldview even temporarily from “decaying” to perfect, this took care of the problem on my personal level also.

I connected this to another dental experience a few years ago. (I may have written this in before).  This time what was upsetting me was seeing houses go up in a huge development near my home, a development we had fought for years and now apparently lost.  As I was driving by one day feeling angry again, I realized that I had just been teaching Sunday School the day before and was telling 8-yr olds about how to handle anger through prayer.  I sure wasn’t walking the talk myself.  So, I decided to send a silent blessing for all my new neighbors each time I drove by instead.  When I went to the dentist a few weeks later they were confused because they had put a “watch” on a tooth expecting to see a worse condition this time, but instead, the dentist couldn’t figure out why there had been a watch on that tooth because there was no evidence of anything wrong.