A girl goes to see her dentist and he takes x-rays with his fancy new imaging device that has amazing detection powers. Lo and behold, it detects a shadow that indicates something is possibly embedded in her jaw—a cyst perhaps—that could rearrange her teeth, fracture her jaw, or worse. Or not. Rare, but it happens.

What’s a girl to do? Well smart girls who are heads of households do not mess around. They take the doctor’s advice and go under the knife; a drill, actually, through her jawbone, where it encountered – nothing. Now she is home applying frozen peas to her swelling jaw and popping pain pills.

This girl is my daughter. My first response was, “How could they put her through that for NOTHING!” My second response was, “Wait a minute, isn’t that EXACTLY what I prayed for? That it would turn out to be nothing?” So I ask myself, why does she have to through this?

It reminds me of when you check your bank statement and see a rogue charge for a small amount of money. Some bot is testing access to your bank account.  You hope it’s nothing to worry about. Most often a legitimate charge against your account shows up in a couple of days and the small amount that was debited gets credited back.

Perhaps in the same way my daughter’s reserves were tested. Running a single parent household isn’t easy in the best circumstances, but she rallied her resources—a friend to be with her, people to pray, the kids’ dad to take them while she recovers—and our prayers were answered.

How many times in our lives do situations pop up that alarm us? If we have built solid friendships and banked memories of all the times God has answered our prayers we stand a better chance of weathering the blips with good humor.