March 2022, I had oral surgery to remove two teeth #8 and #9, from my upper jaw. Enough time has passed that I forgot about the initial visit until the first week of July when I was going through copies of the xrays I requested from the surgeon.
Losing two teeth has been rough. I developed a whistle when I speak. I felt self conscious about the way I looked. It cost a lot of money out of pocket ($7000) to replace them with implants. It took about nine months for the infection to heal, and it was painful. However, it also saved my life.
On my last visit to the oral surgeon, when he gave me access to my cadre of xrays and images, he told me the truth about his initial thoughts. I remember looking at the gaping hole in my skull and him commenting on how my particular case was one of the most challenging and extensive cases he ever tackled the first time we met. However, he told me on that last visit that he knew I had about six months from the date of my consultation before the infection in my skull punched through and started eating my brain.
For a long time I opined the situation, the money, the pain, the disruption, and the stream of unfortunate decisions that led me to this place. Then I realized that going in now, and the circumstances that put me into this place, constitute a sign of God's love for me. He sent a blessing disguised as a trial to save my life.
People often opine the notion that bad things happen to good people and say that a loving God could not possibly allow bad things to happen to His children. While the rationale to explain this is voluminous, in this particular case, God allowed something bad to happen to me because otherwise I would not know I was dying until it was too late. When I took action, He was able to use a skilled surgeon to restore me and make me whole once more.
I have been dead before, but the damage to my brain in those instances was neither infection related nor the concomitant necrosis that would accompany that. This particular circumstance would not be one from which I could recover. Clearly death is not ready for me yet and God still has a work for me to do.
Sometimes things happen in our lives that we don't understand and feel that we don't deserve. I do not know why these things must be, but this experience is another reminder that God would not allow them to happen if they were not somehow for our best eternal good. And sometimes they are for our immediate good too.
I don't know how many more years God gave me with this "blessing disguised as a trial". I am resolved to try to live worthy of the blessing I received. We know from the scriptures that everything Christ touches is made whole again. I was made whole by this too in more ways than simply a restitution of my oral cavity.
I challenge you to look at your trials as opportunities for God to bless you. Whether we talk about Job or Abraham, about Daniel or Elijah, the scriptures are replete with examples of the faithful who went through long and deep troughs. It is in troubled times much more than in good times that we are able to become what He intends us to be. I promise you that if you look for His blessings, you will see them, you will realize them, you will thank God for them, and you will invite other blessings, some of which will be blessings without disguise.
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