Root Canal Meditation

May the words of my mouth

and the meditation of my heart

be pleasing to you,

O LORD, my rock and my redeemer. (Psalm 19:14)

Last week I had the amazing privilege of getting a root canal. I had a back molar break a couple of months ago, leaving a sharp hole that caught every possible piece of food in it. At first it didn't hurt, butdespite my efforts to keep it clean, careful flossing, and watching what I ate and how I chewed, it fairly quickly became infected and started to really bug me. The dentist informed me the crack was down to the nerve and we were going to have drill it all out. So I got to lay in a chair for over 2 hours with my mouth propped open about an inch more than God ever intended. When they were done, the tooth didn't hurt much anymore, but my entire jaw ached like a fury.

I share this because in the aftermath, I have been learning something about myself. I constantly have tense facial muscles. That's not all bad. Mostly I discovered that I typically have a sort of half smile on my face. But then at other times when I am holding things in or avoiding expressing what I am feeling on the inside, I might sometimes be guilty of clenching or even grinding my teeth. But my facial muscles are almost never at rest. Since the root canal those tense muscles make my jaw ache, all the way down to the bone and up to my ear. I've taken some pain killers, but they don't seem to do much. The only solution has been to stop and internally quiet my heart. To deliberately focus on those muscles and relax them. To allow them to let go and just be there. And as soon as I do so, the pain is completely gone. All the pain is caused by the tension of muscles in my face! As soon as something triggers the tension and I forget to relax in my Creator, all the pain comes right back. But as I am able to relax those muscles the pain goes away and healing is able to take place.

Which has made me think that is a great description of what meditation is and what it does for us as people. We all have different hurts and tensions, many of which we are not even aware of. The human body has an amazing capacity to absorb pain and continue to function. Our pains become just a part of who we are, we don't notice them and while they may inconvenience us we discount the inconvenience, usually saying something like, "That's just the way I am."

But what if some of those things are not supposed to be the way we are. We have all been hurt, both physically and relationally. And those things leave pain and scars. For starters, we all have had parents who weren't perfect, and we all initially learn who God is through our parents, so immediately we have perspectives about God and the world that may not actually be the way either God or the world is. I have a knee that carries a pretty good scar where a chain saw tried to go through it, and sometimes it feels a bit stiff and sore quite a bit more than the other one. I don't ever think about it. It doesn’t really slow me down. But it is there, making me something different then I was intended to be. I have had people who made commitments and promises to me and broke them. I have had people who should have been looking out for me but instead they were just using me for their own ends. And I have made choices along the way to lie or steal or lust, giving away my own integrity for things I wanted, felt I needed, or just trying to protect myself or others I cared about.

All those things in our lives damage us so that we become filled with a tension we are often unaware of until some new pain forces us to pay attention, like my tooth. Since our hearts, minds, and bodies are all connected, what is happening in our bodies is usually in some way connected to something happening in our hearts, minds, or emotions. In our culture we seldom practice meditation where we actually focus on letting go of and releasing those things to God. Instead we usually just take drugs to cover or numb the pain until our bodies can adjust, or tough it out until our God given ability to heal restores us enough to be able to continue stumbling on. But meditation is actually a type of prayer we can practice as a regular part of our lives that can be incredibly beneficial in connecting and creating intimacy with our creator, who loves to relieve our pain as we allow Him to help us identify and repent of things in our lives.

Sound intriguing? This is not a "how to meditate" article. I simply want to suggest there is great benefit if we will discipline ourselves to listen and allow God to touch the deepest pains in our lives. God taught me this week how seldom I am aware of either the deep pains or the tensions those pains create in my life physically, emotionally, and relationally. For all of us, our pain, tension, and brokenness has become who we are. But God wants to give us a new name, a new identity. He wants to heal us starting with what is going on inside, which often affects things on the outside. I am continuing to learn that God uses the pain of our lives on the outside to reveal the brokenness of our inner beings and lead us to places of peace and restoration, even when our bodies are failing fragile clay pots.

I want to know Christ and experience the mighty power that raised him from the dead. I want to suffer with him, sharing in his death, so that one way or another I will experience the resurrection from the dead! (Philippians 3: 10-11)

And now I need to go meditate for a few minutes with the Lord, because writing this article has left me feeling pretty tense!