Meet Me in the Middle

A Lenten Curation Project

Lenten Before & Afters

Smile – You’re Rebuilt, Restored, Reestablished

restored

Important Work

I know it’s wrong, but I really envy my husband. He’s a dentist and everyday he gets to help people. What he does isn’t like what I do—he’s not washing another load of clothes, grocery shopping, correcting someone’s 1000-word essay, or delivering that same someone, or their sibling, to piano/tennis/guitar/martial arts lessons (again).

He tells me—all the time—that my job is really important, and I get it. I know what he means. I do the job that lets everyone else pursue their purpose. To paraphrase the theme song from an old chick-flick, “I am the wind beneath their wings.” But doing the same mundane things, day in and day out, can feel very purposeless. Some days I find myself longing for more, for a different kind of work.

There are jobs that give you the opportunity to make great changes in someone else’s life.

Smile Ministry

Sometimes my hubby rescues a patient from tooth pain that has been keeping them awake at night. Other times he gives them the opportunity to eat normally, for the first time in years. His work can relieve debilitating headaches or facial pain. He has even had the opportunity to diagnose other disorders like diabetes, fibromyalgia, sleep apnea, and oral cancer.

Did you know that “an estimated 164 million work hours are lost each year due to oral disease”? (ADA.org) That’s a lot of oral disease! Many people dread going to the dentist, but when you really need one, you are thankful to find a good one, like my husband.

When he finishes restoring someone’s smile, Scott likes to take an “after” picture that can be compared to the one taken before treatment. The picture at the top of this post is from a case that he completed while he was still in the Air Force. The patient had some congenitally missing lateral incisors (two of her front teeth had never formed). She’d had big gaps in the front of her mouth for her whole life. Until he placed a bridge to hold the crowns that he’d stained to perfectly and naturally match her other teeth, she had never had a normal smile.

For Scott, one of the most rewarding tasks he can do is teaching someone how to smile. Some people have hidden their teeth for most of their lives. When they try to smile, their lips won’t part or they cover their mouths with their hands. When people have lived like that, ashamed of their appearance, for so long, they don’t know what it feels like to smile naturally. He has to show them, while they hold a hand mirror, how to work their facial muscles and part their lips to form a smile. What a profound privilege—to teach someone how to smile.

Smile Restoration

How many of us need a different kind of smile restoration?

Is your smile broken? Jesus is called the Great Physician, but in some ways He is very much like a dentist. In our hearts, He removes decay, restores function, and creates beauty. Sometimes He has to teach us how to smile. And like a dentist, Jesus does custom work. He doesn’t make one-size-fits-all smiles. In the same way that no two mouths are exactly alike, no two people are exactly alike. We each need the personal and individualized approach of Jesus, who said:

The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
because he has anointed me
to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives
and recovering of sight to the blind,
to set at liberty those who are oppressed,
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.

Luke 4:18-19

Do you feel like you’ve lost your smile? Is heartache keeping you awake at night? Are you stuck in the middle place, waiting for restoration? Remember that Jesus is always working in the middle, for our good, and remember that He’s a finisher (Romans 8:28; Hebrews 12:2). He will accomplish what He has set out to do, in us, in His time. Jesus is God’s promise to love us, come to life.

Jesus is there with you, right now, in the middle.

Though I walk in the midst of trouble, You will revive me;
You will stretch forth Your hand against the wrath of my enemies,
And Your right hand will save me.
The Lord will accomplish what concerns me;
Your lovingkindness, O Lord, is everlasting…

Psalm 138:7-8, NASB

 

During Lent: We Celebrate the Waiting

waiting daffodil

THE WAITING

–The Before–
The now and the not yet,
The in between.
WAIT.
The what is and what is to come.
The HOPE.
WAIT.
For a “winter dead,”
ITS GREAT THAW.
The cold barren ground
WAITS.
UNTO SOMETHING other,
UNTO ITS UNDOING.
WAIT.
An AFTER:
A yielding of hard earth to tender stem
Unto a “Greenest Gown.”
Hope upon dead earth
Coming up green,
Out of what was,
To what is and is to come.
The unfolding of trumpets
To herald the SON.
HE IS COMING!
All the earth will bow
And the great winter will be dead.

The pictures and the poem above are by my new friend Sissy, an artist with a passion for God and His Word. Her poem was inspired by A.A. Milne’s Daffodowndilly.

On Ash Wednesday, the earth has been waiting for Spring. This time of year, we see the daffodil, echoing Christ’s power over sin and death, pushing aside suffocating dirt, bringing life and beauty, ushering in a new season. Jesus raised Himself from the grave, up from the depths of earth. This miraculous show of power and authority foreshadows His Second Coming, when He will return to raise us up from this place of sin and death, forever. There will be a new heaven and a new earth.

For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the sound of the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will always be with the Lord (1 Thessalonians 4:16-17).

Waiting, in the Middle

Lent is definitely all about life in the middle; it’s a time of looking back, remembering. Lent is also a time of looking forward, to the triumph of Christ.

As we exist in the waiting — in the middle — we hope. And our hope is not in vain, knowing that Jesus has gone before us, has made the way clear for us, is making a place for us, and will return to bring us to our new home in heaven. When we are united with God there, we will be made perfect — that is, we will be complete in every way.

Where we are going there will be no more sorrow or tears, no more pain or death. This is gospel—good news. So, here in the muck and mire, we wait with hope, because we know the ending. We know that Jesus makes life out of death.

Sissy Boone is a daddy’s girl, but not a girly girl. She’s more comfortable with paint on her hands than fingernail polish. She breathes God’s Word in deeply and always wants more. She’s fiercely passionate about her kids—ages 17, 19, and 20. Sissy loves: all things horses, boots, and barns. Football, beer, and coffee. Trees, fire, and rain. She says, “I’d rather be lost in the woods than laying on the beach. I’d rather have a steak than a salad, a great book over a movie, and the messy creative process of art over the finished piece.” Sissy is a maker who works in acrylic paint and watercolor, inspired by nature and the deep things of God. In Birmingham, you can find her art at The Neighborhood Brew and she often paints live at Christ Church UMC. Sissy is currently building a website to better share her art with you.