Jesus and the Sweet Tooth: Let that Crow Fly Friend

I lost a dental implant.  When I say I lost it, I know where it is, and I cannot get it back.  No, really.  It actually isn’t even worthy of prose, but for the lunacy.

It happened in the Walgreens parking lot.  I was reconciling my checkbook and making a grocery list.  Previously, while in Walgreens, I had let the kids, the vandals, my three and five-year-old sons, pick a treat, they picked gummy bears, while Sophie, my teen baby, had opted for Milk Duds. I had frowned at her.  Her pearly whites just came out of orthodontic jail a few months ago. She liked the freedom of the ooey-gooey, but I still felt the pangs of dental debt every time she bit into something harsher than a blueberry muffin.

As they sang along to the soundtrack from Trolls, for the 9,000^th time, I tried to focus on meal prep, ease and economy.  Sophie shook the box of chocolate-caramel treats, “Want one?”

“No.” I chirped.

“Yes.” I actually did.

“No…,” I argued.

“Well, yeah, just one.”

She placed one sweet treat in my hand, and without much thought, I popped it into my mouth and bit down. I chewed twice. And then I quickly rolled down my window and spat the delicacy out.  Sophie quizzed, “What?”

“Something was in it!  Like a piece of glass or metal!” I reached for my water bottle and took a swig.

“Are you alright?” she inquired.

“Yes.” And then I realized, my crown from my back molar was gone. “Oh no!”

“What now?” Sophie gasped.

“It wasn’t in the candy!  It was my porcelain crown!” I lept from the car to try and retrieve the partially masticated candy only to meet with a trashy parking lot crow who nabbed the waste with my $1250 dental implant wadded up in caramel and DNA sample… and flew away.

I got back in the car, and Sophie, and I looked at each other, and she said, “No.Freaking. Way.” 

“Way,”  I said.

I confess this happened a few weeks ago, I haven’t had it replaced.  There hasn’t been time or money.  I have sat down to write about it a few times, and just couldn’t.  First of all, seriously?  I still cannot believe that happened.  Second of all…. No.  Freaking.  Way.  Sophie actually mentioned, “Well, it will be a good blog post and a lesson about something.”

But what?

What good message can come from a crow eating a Milk Dud I spat out in a Walgreens parking lot with my porcelain crown in it?

And all the readers sit at my feet and wait in wonder… tell us oh wise one, what did you learn from this latest lunacy in which you were chasing a crow in a parking lot to retrieve your dental implant?  Truly, I wish I had chased it, beat it to death with one of my stylish shoes, then I could add an affiliate link here.  You too can have these classy pumps that are versatile and comfy and can also be used to beat a bird to death in a pinch!

Alas, these are my shoes.  But I haven’t killed any wildlife with them.

Try as I could, I couldn’t come up with a wise lesson from this stupid scenario. Aside from, Milk Duds and dental work just don’t mix.  Heed the warning.  And then, I realized that no lesson was the lesson.  We don’t have to always have a mystic teachable moment.  Not every single incident is a lesson in the ways of Our Lord.

I love Jesus.

No, really.

I love Him.

[clickToTweet tweet=”What good message comes from a crow eating a #MilkDud I spat out in a @Walgreens parking lot” quote=”What good message can come from a crow eating a #MilkDud I spat out in a @Walgreens parking lot”]

But I have fallen in love with Him since I came to know that He isn’t some puppet master that has me chasing crows in pharmacy parking lots.  And yes, I believed this about Him for the majority of my Christian walk.  Everything was a test, some creepy method by which He was going to show me something and I would “finally get it.”  As if He was a mad science teacher that made up obscene and hilarious, often cruel challenges where I would grow in faith and finally learn something.

God is good.

He is a good Father.

He cannot be anything but good.  This God, He is the core of all good.  I can test this with two good earthly fathers I know.  My own dad and my husband Justin, neither of which who will hear this story and lecture or berate me.  Neither who will raise their voices, or allow this story to challenge their love for me.  Neither who would ever think to feed me a piece of candy and start a chain of events that caused me dental trauma so that I might learn a lesson.

And if they, in their humanness would never try to harm me with such a lesson, how much kinder and more patient would my Father in Heaven treat me?  In my quest to figure out God, wait, in my quest to maneuver through life and make sense of nonsense and fit God into the confines of that nonsense, thereby making the gobbledygook theologically perfected and somewhat digestible, this has been my design.

Certainly, there are things that have happened in my life that He has somehow used to guide me, teach me and help me grow.  Still other times, I confess, I have manipulated the situation so as to make Him seem a factor, or even needlessly blamed Him, so as to make the drivel seem dramatically worthwhile.  All the while, uselessly manifesting a confusing beast of a God who is altogether Walmarty and Toyota-ish while babies starve in Africa and true suffering makes less and less sense.

No wonder.

No wonder, the non-believers scoff at my rituals and muse my genuiness?

Here in this place, with a missing crown on my lower right back molar, that I wholly believe is gone because the candy was simply too sticky, Jesus is just Jesus.  Perhaps He is no more or less concerned with that costly crown and the crow who choked on it.  But because I am His daughter He knows it needs to be replaced.  He hears me when I whimper that hot and cold are problematic.  I have hope opportunities will arise where I might get it fixed, but I am not stressed that He is furious, indifferent, or laughing at me and the Walgreens-Milk Dud episode.

Today, if you hear His voice, do not seek to over analyze and strategize.  Just today, if you can be still and let Him be just Him, just this day, enjoy what it is like to be parented instead of continually dissecting and desperately clawing your eyes out in an effort to figure Him out. This day, today, if you can, instead of chasing the beast, rest at the feet of a good and adoring Father. What other relationship are you blessed where you scrutinize instead of harmonize?  What other bond are you strengthened by in studying rather than communing?  How do you grow in intimacy while memorizing the text instead of basking in the Word?

Let Jesus be Jesus.

And friend,  just let that crow fly.

May your floors be sticky and your calling ordained.  Love, Jami

If today you hear His voice, harden not your heart.  Hebrews 3:15

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