The Great Pit of Carkoon

There is a giant hole in one of my top, right teeth. I can feel it with my tongue. I have an appointment for next week to have it filled or filed off or whatever, but in the meantime I'm afraid to eat.
I dreamed last night in feverish anxiety that the hole got bigger, that the whole tooth fell away in pieces, that I could see it in the mirror and it looked like some Sarlacc nesting in my gums.
I'm frightened (not of Sarlacci, naturally, because they're fictional. I'm afraid for my teeth, I'm afraid for how much it's going to cost to get it fixed, and I'm afraid that I will never be okay again).

I don't usually look to the scriptures for comfort because I haven't always found it there, and when I feel anxious the last thing I need is more anxiety from God (not that He gives anxiety, just that sometimes his love doesn't get through to me a fast as his disapproval does), but yesterday I did. I was flipping open the scriptures for my daily study from the topical guide and I found the entry on miracles. I scanned through, skimming the Old and New Testaments, and then read more carefully over the Book of Mormon entries.
I spotted 2 Nephi 27:23, which says: "For behold, I am God; and I am a God of miracles; and I will show unto the world that I am the same yesterday, today, and forever; and I work not among the children of men save it be according to their faith."

I thought about the hard things in my life, and the miracles in my life and it seemed to me that I have been coasting on a tide of miracles. My whole life is miraculous and I am living such wonderful dreams. That is not all, though, under all of these gifts my life is full of hard things, of anxieties and pain. I wondered for the briefest moment why God is so cruel, and why God is so generous, and then I realized that they are not separate. God does not have multiple personalities. Both halves of life are connected. We suffer pain so that we can be empathetic, and so that we can learn to exercise our faith properly, and when we do then God tips out His miracles.
I must remember both halves of my life, and the pattern that connects them.

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