Karla

Yesterday, I went to the dentist.

Now my dental hygenist is Karla and I have known Karla for a long time-since she was a little girl in a church that Brokerbelle and I were involved with.

Karla's mother, Debbie, is a wonderful Chistian inspirational speaker and leader, who has a gift of mercy.

Karla, some how, inherited her Mother's spiritual gift of mercy. She worries about whether she is doing the right thing in church and the fact that she is unable to attend regularly because of her husband, who both to Karla, Debbie and to myself, is a pretty great guy. She has no "church ministry" like her mother.

Instead, she exhibits the grace of God and the mercy of God to all those who come into the House of Pain (excuse me, I meant the dentists office). She is a delight both to her employer and all those who work with her .

She has a child of her own. She has also taken in her sister's teen-age daughter, and is raising her. She works with children that have cancer. She talks about having Thanksgiving on Thanksgiving Evening but hopes to have her and her family serving in a soup kitchen on Thanksgiving Day. I have watched her with patients. She pets them. She pats them on the back, she touches their arms, she counsels them. Every person in the dentist chair is an object of Karla's mercy.

When Karla was a child I saw her pray in faith for other children. And God who sees a child's pure heart, was quick to answer. I believe the faith of that child is still in her heart.

How ironic to see God's grace and mercy showing itself not in the church, but in a dentist's chair in Outer Ozarklandia. How wonderful to see such a quiet and peaceful ministry. How dichotomous, to see a person with such mercy, wield such terrible metal instruments for cleaning of mouths. How strange to think of Mother Theresa cleaning teeth.

Well, that is HarleyDad's dental hygenist. I bet you wish you had one like her!!