An open door

“All will be well,” the Lord had promised me.

You cannot get a better guarantee than that.  And from the Guarantor Himself!  I had prayed this day through in advance.  And God had given me peace about it.  So I confidently climbed into the dentist’s chair for some repairwork to an old tooth filling. No problem, no worries, I told myself.   God would see me through safely.  I was in His hands.

I tried to forget that some twenty years before, I had experienced a severe allergic reaction to a local anesthetic at another dentist’s office.  Dizziness, trouble breathing, blue fingernails, etc…. The villain that day was carbocaine.  A dose of benadryl quickly turned most of my symptoms around.  The dentist called my husband Jim, who was able to drive me home, where I soon recovered.

Since then, Jim always accompanies me on dental visits–just in case the unexpected happens.

Now for the first time in twenty years, I was going to need another shot of local anesthetic.   This dentist was confident that I would have no problem with septocaine, a cousin of the first drug.  He minimized my history of allergy and made no provision for a possible bad reaction.  He had been my dentist for some twenty years, and so I trusted him.

But as he slowly, painfully injected the poison into my mouth, I knew something dreadful was happening.  I tried to stop him.  I murmured.   But I could not speak.   I realized that I was not breathing.  I reminded myself to concentrate and and make the effort to keep air coming in and out on purpose.

When he finally stopped the injection, I told him something was really wrong.  I could not explain.

“I apply the Blood of Jesus over me,”  I declared. “No weapon formed against me shall prosper!” (Isaiah 54:17).

My hand began to thrash about wildly beyond my control.  I was gasping loudly for air. Then I stopped breathing again.  The room grew dark and faded away.

I heard a voice say, “Home….  Do you want to go home?”

Yes, for sure, I thought.  I longed to go home to my pretty, safe, comfortable house, many miles away.   But I could not see a way to get there from here right now!

“It’s time to go home with Jesus,” the Holy Spirit told me.

Gradually I understood what He was saying.  I looked up and saw a portal to another place.  It was bright and colorful.  Blue skies and tall golden grass.  The sense of peace there was magnetic, drawing me in.  I was eager to escape the chaos of the battle on earth.  If God said it was my time to go to Jesus, I was ready to go.  Heaven looked welcome to me.

Jesus said, “I am the door.  If anyone enters through Me, he will be saved, and will go in and out and find pasture.”                                                          John 10:9

Photo by Cliff LeSergent/Alamy Stock Photo