Jay Passavant

You may find it strange that something instructive should come out of having a root canal procedure but it has!

Just today I headed to the specialist for what was sure to be a painful and perhaps complex procedure known as a "microscopic" root canal.

However, I learned a few things because the experience was unusually affective and straightforward (at least for now)!

In some ways, having a root canal evokes about as much fear for some of us as sharing our faith. We may not feel like we are prepared to do what's needed or have the right words to say and as a result we often try to avoid those situations.

But here's what I learned from a root canal:
- Be confident! (My endodontist was supremely confident in her skills and therefore put me at ease.)
- Know your stuff! Having had much experience she knew exactly what needed to be done and just how to go about the process to cause minimal pain and maximum effectiveness.
- Check and double check! Along the way she took several x-rays to be sure she was doing things exactly right and then requires a follow-up visit in about 3 months to make sure everything has been affectively addressed.
- Have a team! She had an associate who knew exactly what she was supposed to do on cue and did so seemlessly.
- Keep it brief! (She did the entire procedure in about 45 minutes with no fuss or muss.)

Now I could go down each one of these and draw a parallel to sharing your faith. By far the most important one is to be confident. When people know that you simply are telling your story and offering it to them as something that you know very well because its "your story" it sets them at ease and makes them listen rather than be defensive.

All the other ones help if you think about them in parallel language. However, being confident took away my fear of "getting hurt" and replaced it with a sense of assurance that this was something I needed to have done even though I didn't want to!

At any rate, I don't plan to run back in for another procedure any time soon, but it was certainly instructive to me about a number of things related to dealing with issues that people may not want to look at. Sharing our faith with someone who may not want to hear it is just such a matter.

And so, witnessing is not exactly like a root canal but in some ways you can be enormously blessed if you think of those simple guidelines.

Smiling with a drool,
Dr. Jay