LIKE PULLING TEETH

Have you ever had a loose tooth? I think it’s safe to say that everybody has. It’s usually not long until they come out all by themselves. I lost several teeth this way when I was young. I remember being told that if I put them under my pillow the tooth fairy would take them and leave me some money. I did that several times until I finally realized the adults in my family were the tooth fairies.

One day I was at my mom and dad’s and I had a loose tooth. Well, my dad told me I didn’t need to wait for it to come out by itself because I might swallow it. Then I wouldn’t get any money from the tooth fairy. He suggested we tie one end of a string around my tooth and the other end around a doorknob. I was reluctant because I was afraid it would hurt, but I went along with his plan. When we got everything set up and I was just the right distance from the open door, my dad quickly slammed it. As it closed with a thud, my head jerked forward and the string fell to the floor. It didn’t hurt as bad as I thought it was going to. Maybe it didn’t work. Well, that’s what I thought. My dad pulled the string up from the floor and hanging there on the end was my bloody tooth. It did work.

That one was easy, but when I grew up, I had to have a tooth pulled because it was causing me pain. It wasn’t loose, so the dentist had to cut it out. One of my wisdom teeth had grown in wrong and caused the tooth in front of it to develop a cavity, so he had to remove two teeth to get the bad one out. It took him two hours to remove those two teeth. Now, I truly understand the expression, “Like Pulling Teeth.”

Just like my loose tooth that needed to come out, we sometimes have things in our lives that we need to do, but we put them off because we are afraid. We make things hard, “Like Pulling Teeth” that aren’t loose. Many times, we need to just do it and get it over with. Here’s where we fail, and this is what leads to fear. We should always ask God what we need to do first. He needs to be a part of every decision we make, and he will be if we always put him first and always seek to please him.

Too many of us want to be in control of our own lives and do what we want, but then we run to God to fix whatever mess we get into by doing what we want. We make things “like pulling teeth.” Stop, Look, and Listen! God is all-knowing. He has wisdom that we could never have and he does know what’s best for each of us in any given situation. We need to realize that and accept it.

God doesn’t want to be our boss. He wants to be our guide. He wants us to be happy, healthy, and wise. He wants us to prosper. He has plans for each of us. If we follow him, we will not go wrong. Following God is more than just walking the same path behind him, though. The Greek word for FOLLOW means “to be in the same way with,” or “to accompany.” He is right there WITH us on our journey to protect us and guide us.

Talk to God. Communicate with him at all times, not just when you need something. Build your life around him and his word, The Bible. Ask him what you should do, daily, and do what he says and you’ll soon find yourself happy. No, everything won’t be perfect but you’ll make fewer mistakes and bad decisions. Don’t make life hard “like pulling teeth.” Give it all to God and follow him. Life will be better here, and you’ll be able to live with God forever when this life is over. Give it a try. I dare you.

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THE POND, THE FORK, AND THE MUD PIES

I think was six years old, when we moved into our new house in Theo Mississippi. It was white with a shiny silver roof. It was in the same neighborhood where we had lived since I could remember. In the new house, my little sister and I each had our own bedroom. The living room in this house was bigger than in the house we had moved from, and we had a bathroom with a tub and water inside the house. We had hot water, too, so we no longer had to heat water to bathe in. We had moved up in the world. Our yard was about the same size as our old one but the layout was a bit different. We had more yard in the front but the side of the house was about the same distance away from the road that the front of our old house was, but it sat on a hill several feet higher than the road.

The house was much nicer, too. It had painted wood inside and nice, aluminum-framed, energy-efficient windows. It even had a storm house. There were several nice, big trees and one of them was a walnut tree. There were plum trees and persimmon trees and beautiful rose bushes all along the property next to the road. The landlord had a cornfield by the side of the driveway in front of the house and he told us we could get all the corn we wanted any time we wanted it. It was like a paradise.

We were excited about our new home, and so was our dog, Clete. I remember making mud pies there for the first time. Somebody gave us an Easy Bake Oven. It didn’t work, but we pretended it did. We made a grocery store and stocked it with empty containers that our grandmother saved for us when they were all used up. We had cereal boxes, oat boxes, milk cartons and jugs, butter bowls, and lots of empty cans. We would play store for hours.

One day, not long after we moved in, a good rain came. There was plenty of mud for some mud pies. I guess we got tired of that after a while. How many mud pies can a kid make anyway? We were just outside the bathroom window and the siding was made from sheets of something white with an orange peel texture. I just remember how pretty and white it was. I think I threw one of the mud pies and it stuck on the white wall. Then maybe my sister threw another one. The next thing I remember is both of us with our backs to the wall, bending over with our hands in the red clay mud, throwing it behind us between our legs, all over that pretty white wall.

When my grandmother saw what we had done she was more than a little upset. After the yelling and the lecture, she made us clean up the mess. We scrubbed as hard as we could for what seemed like forever but we just could not get it back to the pretty clean white that it was before. Our grandmother saw that we had done our best so she tried, but those stains never did come clean. They were still there six years later.

There was a pond on the other side of the small field behind the house but it was fenced in with barbed wire. We weren’t allowed to go there by ourselves, until several years later. I once got some water from there to take to school for science class. We looked at a drop of it under a microscope and saw a creature with a big head and huge horns. It looked like a bull with no legs. When I was older I went there by myself a couple of times but that was it. I never went back. It just wasn’t as exciting as I had imagined for all those years.

When we were older, I was annoying my sister and she got mad and threw some tea on me. I had a bad temper, and before I could think, I threw a fork at her and the points of the prongs stuck in the side of her head. I was sorry I did it when I realized how bad she could have been hurt. I could have even put her eye out.

Sometimes as I look back at my childhood, I remember some things that I’m not proud of. I’ve often wished that I could forget every bad thing that I’ve done and every bad thing that has ever happened in my life, but I realized that those bad experiences are part of what has made me who I am today. Testing and trials build character and how we react in any given situation tells us, as well as others, what kind of person we really are. We should learn from our mistakes and wrong choices. If nothing else, we should at least realize that we can’t make it on our own, and that prompts us to seek the help of our Creator.

So, when you look back at your past and remember things you wish you could forget, take a closer look at those things to see if you learned anything from them. If you didn’t, then examining them may help you to put everything in perspective and maybe you’ll be able to deal with your past a little bit better. Then, leave the past behind and hold on to the good memories and cherish each and every one of them. They are part of what made you who you are, too.

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My Blogs
https://teddylynn.blogspot.com
https://teddylynn.wordpress.com

© 2018 Teddy Lynn – All Rights Reserved

My books are available in paperback and digital format on Amazon @ 
https://www.amazon.com/Teddy-Lynn/e/B01MZDB6L6