Tonight my little girl had a tooth hanging by a thread that simply needed to be pulled. You know the kind of tooth that is actually sticking out between the lips even though the mouth is closed. She needed to let me pull it so she could eat, but when I tried to get my fingers around her tooth, she firmly closed her mouth into a thin line and I am pretty sure that even if I had a crowbar I wasn’t getting to that tooth. I gently talked to her, cajoled her, comforted her, spoke firmly to her, but to no avail. She would not obey my request to open her mouth. You see she was afraid.

She looked up at me with her big blue eyes and said, “Mommy I scared.” Those words hit my heart. I hugged her, said that it would be alright, that she didn’t need to be afraid. It wasn’t going to hurt any more than the last one had, but then she said, “But Mommy, the blood.” I kneeled down next to her and said, “It will be okay hunny, the bleeding will stop. Mommy loves you and I just want to help you.” She sat for a minute and then she looked up at me and said, “Okay Mommy.” Finally the locked jaw opened and she let me pull her tooth.

Why didn’t she just open up right away and let me do the simple task of removing her barely “there” tooth? You see, she hadn’t yet decided to trust me. Her desire for self-protection over road anything I could say or do. She had to decide to trust me. She had to come to the conclusion that I was going to do what was best for her even if it hurt a little. Once she did that she was able to surrender to my well meaning intentions. She realized that I loved her and would take care of her.

After she went to bed (with no pain and very little bleeding), it hit me that we are no different. We cry, kick, scream in order to keep our “loose tooth” intact when in all reality we would be much better off without it. Our “loose tooth” can be any number of things, maybe a ministry we need to let go of, a friendship that needs to change, a child we need to surrender, an unaccomplished goal that is stealing our joy, and our Father is kneeling beside us telling us it will be okay, that He loves us, that He will pull it out quickly, with only a little bit of blood being lost.

If we trust Him, we will let Him pull our “loose tooth”. Our desire for self-protection will be met once we understand that our Father is acting in our best interest. When we accept that He loves us and will take care of us, we can finally surrender, because He can be trusted. So, the next time you have to pull one of your little one’s teeth, consider what teeth are loose in your own life. Consider which tooth your Heavenly Father is trying to pull so something new, healthier and more solid can take its rightful place in your life.