Purgatory and the Dentist's Office

Sitting in the lovely reclining chair in the dentists office is a wonderful place to think, if only to get your mind off of what is going on in your mouth at the same moment.
By the grace of God my thoughts centered on God, in a way.  The analogy that popped into my head seemed to fit and the more I thought about it and the more I experienced in the office the better it was.

Going to the dentist is like going to purgatory.
Nobody wants to go there, but it is inevitable... we have to eventually.  If we have been following the dentists guidelines, the visit is almost pain free and the joy of walking through those doors is just heavenly.
Unfortunately, most of us do not follow the guidelines and rules of the dentist.  So our visit is painful.  The scraping, poking and picking seems to last forever.  The high frequency water jet used to blast off the bad stuff hurts my ear drums more then my mouth.  I would take nails on a chalkboard over the scraping of metal on my teeth.  Then, after all that, the doctor comes in for one final look, only to tell me I get to come in again to fill some little holes in my teeth that unfortunately made it through the enamel.
I see purgatory as being something like that. We get our souls scraped of all the bad things we did, and it will not be painless. Once that is all done St. Michael comes in to check us over, and maybe we have a little bit more to do until we are ready for eternal glory.

Just a thought... I guess all I can do come Thursday morning is offer up the pain to God.

Peace all