Don't Let Things go Unattended

Have you ever had a situation that you didn't really want to face? In your mind you succeeded in tricking yourself that if you ignore the problem it will just go away. Recently that happened to me. Infact, I'm in the middle of it right now. Before I tell you about it, let me just say one thing. If there's something in your life that you know needs to be dealt with, just do it. It might not be fun, it might even be painful, but in the end it's worth it.

A couple of years ago I had 2 root canals done on my back teeth. Not the ideal way to spend time or money, but I was happy, because the pain had become unbearable. The price was almost $2000 to get it done, and I was under the impression that it was for the entire procedure...getting new caps and all. So, when I called to make the appointment for the caps to get done, they said it was going to be around another $2000. I don't know about you, but coming up with an extra $4000 for teeth isn't easy. So, instead of getting them done, I let it go. Afterall, the pain was gone, and though it was pretty inconvenient when the temporary filling fell out, I still left it unattended. That was about a year and a half ago.

Over that period of time, I could tell they were in really bad shape. One ended up falling out, but never healing correctly, and the other just wasn't right at all. About 3 weeks ago I could tell something was going on with them because it started getting a little painful again. Then on Tuesday night, last week, I looked and they had abcessed. On Friday, I ended up at the Ortho Surgeon, and had both removed permanently.

Why am I sharing this? It's pretty gross, pretty personal, not many people want to hear about infected teeth...but, I share this because in many areas of our life we think if we ignore it, it will just fix it self or go away completely. That usually isn't the case. Whether it's in a marriage, raising kids, our health, our careers, our relationship with God, etc. leaving things unattended is never the answer. Sometimes we do just enough to make the pain go away, but never go as far as we need to, to resolve it totally.

This has made me think, and I am determining to look at every area in my life, and ask the Lord, "What am I not wanting to deal with? What have I let go?" I don't want to wait until the infection is so bad, that "emergency surgery" has to be done. What about you?