The Cracked Tooth

Christmas Eve found my wife and I driving through soup-like dense fog that would have frustrated even Rudolph. We were slowly heading to the North Fulton Hospital Emergency room.  My wife was driving. I was riding shotgun, blinded by pain.

It wasn’t exactly my idea of Christmas cheer.

A nagging toothache had turned into full-blown painful infection. And as much as I hate emergency rooms, I had to get some relief.  Pain radiated outward into my ear, jaw and throat. All my teeth rattled with pain.  Aleve and ibuprofen wouldn’t touch it.  I was in a foggy Hell and couldn’t focus on anything but the pain I was experiencing.

We’ve all been there before in our lives.  We’ve all had the “cracked tooth” that stole 100% of our attention. It’s the proverbial squeaky wheel. We focus on the bad stuff in our lives and completely ignore all that is going right. While I had a mouthful of great teeth, the cracked and infected one was stealing my attention. And joy.

As we prepare to say goodbye to 2012, I think of all of the bad things that have happened this year both personally and globally.  It’s easy to think of all of those cracked teeth.  To focus on the bad and allow it to pull me down.  But the trick is — and what I am struggling with now — is to focus on the good teeth. All the good things happening in my life.

Friday morning, I will have a root canal.  Honestly, I dread it.  But I’m not going to allow it (and the financial hit involved)  to ruin my overall outlook. I’ll just focus on my good teeth, get the bad one fixed, deal with it and move on.  It’s all I can do.

Really, in the face of all the world full of cracked teeth, it’s all we all can do.