Got Milk?

It’s been a popular ad campaign.  “Have you had your milk today?” spoken in pictures of celebrities, sports figures, models.  They wore the familiar milk mustache.  Drink your milk because it builds strong bones and strong bodies, they tell us.  I think to myself: I hope my kids are reading this and listening.  I have pleaded with them to drink their milk and chew those calcium supplements.  After all there is only a narrow window of years (maybe til we’re 25?) where the calcium we ingest gets laid down as new bone.  After that it’s just a battle to keep from losing it too quickly. 

I got to thinking about these ads when I went for my bone densitometry scan today.  First time.  “Baseline scan” my doctor told me.  I lay, looking at the laser which would measure the bone density of my hips and my spine.  I wondered what it would find.  I hadn’t always drunk my milk, eaten my yogurt and taken my calcium supplement.  I could lie about this to my mother.  Even to myself.  But I couldn’t lie to this machine.  It could look inside me.  It would know the truth.

I wondered about this knowledge and even greater things, hidden in the heart of the One who created me.  The one who knew me, inside and out.  How often had I pretended I did what was best?  How often had I acted one way but knew, in my heart, the right thing and failed to do it.  No one would know.  No one except the One who could see me on the inside.

It really is quite miraculous that as the Bible says, even though God knows every word before it’s on my tongue, that He loves me anyway.  And not just the density of my bones but the depth of my heart.  I am completely transparent to Him.  A uniquely humbling thought.  But one I pray daily will inspire me to be better, to grow stronger.  And perhaps a bit more forceful about getting my kids to drink their milk!  Both the kind that strengthens their bones and the kind that nourishes their spirits.