Root Canals and Other Mundane Miracles

I so did not want a root canal and although I couldn't chew on the right side of my mouth for more than 6 months, I still patiently prayed for my miracle healing.

After all, I kept telling myself, “I am healed by the stripes of Christ.”

Am I right?

I’ve prayed for healing a lot over the past decade as I’ve suffered from chronic conditions that have often left me lying in bed for extended periods of time.

So it seemed like a miracle healing to avoid a root canal was a no-brainer. It wouldn’t take too much of God’s time and so would be a win-win for him and I. But no miracle healing arrived. In fact, quite to the contrary, my tooth got worse (go figure!).

I prayed for the intercession of St. Alena (toothaches are her specialty) and took homeopathic remedies.

Still nothing.

Finally I couldn’t put it off any longer and scheduled the dreaded root canal appointment.

That’s when my pleading changed; my definition of a miracle evolved.

I began to see that the fact that I could go get a root canal that would be—essentially—pain free was a miracle! Sure the roof-of-the-mouth shot hurt and the 2 ½ hour procedure was a bit exhausting and the throbbing after-root-canal procedure pain was there…but the fact remained that the root canal was a success and the pain wasn’t anything like, let’s say, having a tooth extracted a century ago.

Miracles abound.

I began to thank God for the miracle of being able to have a root canal. Crazy, right? Yes and no.

It occurred to me that we live our lives knee-deep in miracles—things we definitely take for granted can be moved in our minds from “expectations” to the “miraculous” and thus make us more grateful throughout our day.

And what I see as a miracle is probably way different than what you see as a miracle and that’s why we don’t really need to share them with each other (except of course I had to share this one to make a point!); rather, the miracles we choose to see (because it really is a choice) can be kept between ourselves and God and simply raise our spirits to him as they are filled with gratitude.

Who would have thought that a root canal was a miracle and an answer to prayer! Not me, that’s for sure.

Picture: ID 13250246 © Jaeeho | Dreamstime.com