God bless Alfred Einhorn, who developed the pain-killer Novocaine in 1905.

I was the lucky recipient of a syringe full of the merciful magical anesthetic today.

For the past two weeks, I haven’t been chewing on my left side. Because it hurts. Okay, maybe it’s more like four weeks. So, being the adult that I am, I made a dentist appointment. Making that call required an enormous amount of self-control due to a traumatic dental history.

My mother took me to a small-town dentist near our home when I was very young. His office was above a store and we walked up creaky wooden stairs and through a creaky wooden door. The dentist had very thick glasses which made his eyes look huge. There was no dental assistant, no laughing gas, and no novocaine.

That’s right. I said no novocaine.

Once when he was drilling my tooth, he hit a nerve and I fainted dead-away in the chair. He picked me up and carried me in his arms out to the small waiting room. I’ve always wondered what my mother thought at the sight of her limp little girl. All I remember is coming to with smelling salts and his magnified eyes inches from my face.

Hence, the four (ok, maybe six) weeks of no chewing on my left side.

Today, as I sat in the dentist’s chair and felt my tongue and cheek go numb, I was grateful. Not for the Novocaine, but for a Savior that refused the pain-killer, because He was determined to be a sin-killer. As Charles Spurgeon, my favorite old dead guy wrote, “To us, sensations such as our Lord endured would have been insupportable, and kind unconsciousness would have come to our rescue; but in His case, He was wounded, and felt the sword; He drained the cup and tasted every drop.”

“They offered him wine mixed with myrrh, but he did not take it.”                  Mark 15:23