I went to the dentist yesterday.
I suppose I should be pretty excited to go there. After all, I have never had to have a filling or any serious work done in my mouth. All the same, when the hygienist got her instruments of torture stuck between my molars and started commenting on how tight my teeth were together, I wince more than a little on the inside.
Afterward, as I walked to my truck, a little traumatized, I could hear my mother's voice. "But did it kill you?"
And of course, it didn't. Kill me, that is.
In life there are many things that won't kill you, but are still no fun to go through. A surprisingly high number of them revolve around medical tests and procedures.
There are all sorts of statements about painful situations that I don't believe. From the silly "No pain, no gain!" to the simply not true "What does not kill me will only make me stronger," these statements are uniformly ridiculous and designed to try to make us feel good about pain.
There are plenty of reasons that we endure suffering. One of the biggest reasons (and the reason I see the dentist routinely) is hopefully to avoid worse suffering in the future. I'd rather have my teeth cleaned regularly than end up losing them.
This is the reason that most people go through medical tests.
Christians go through suffering for a different reason. Paul said in the book of Romans "For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us." In other words, heaven is worth more than anything we have to go through in this life.
I hope we can keep that glory in mind, even on days when things aren't going so well.
I don't know that I will ever enjoy suffering, but by God's grace, I can endure anything I face.
Even a trip to the dentist.
