On Flossing, Brushing and AHA Moments

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This picture reminds me of an "aha" moment I had about 10 years ago sitting in a dental hygienist's chair. For the last few years I had been doing a cleaning three times a year (instead of two) because of plaque issues on my front teeth.. and I was glad that my plaque didn't seem as hard to clean since I had gone to more frequent cleaning.. the cleaning of my teeth had become a torturous experience replete with those nasty pick-like dental instruments and sometimes a bit of bleeding.

So I am sitting there getting my teeth cleaned by a new hygienist and she starts to quiz me about my dental hygiene routine.. hey.. where is my regular hygienist.. she doesn't ask me embarrassing questions. So I retreat into my Jedi persona and speak to her about how I brush all the time.. she interrupts me and asks sometime like "So how often do you floss?" I brush off her remarks and say something like "I try to floss regularly." She then says "If you would just floss every day you would not have to get your teeth cleaned so often."

I was busted and my ego was bruised a bit. I was wanting my old hygienist - where was she anyway? I mean who is this gal anyway? She didn't know me! I think I mumbled something back to her about "trying harder" - but I could not shake her advice.. she had spoken truth to me.. I had heard it before but for some reason I "heard it" this time.

The aftermath was that I began a simple regimen of flossing every day.. it just takes a few minutes.. and amazingly I went back to teeth cleaning twice a year.. and the cleaning came without pain.. the cleanings were amazingly quick and the hygienist usually told me how great my teeth looked.

Have you ever had an "aha" moment? Ever "hear" something that you had been told many times and for some reason believed it? I wonder if that was what Jesus was speaking to when he spoke about people having ears to hear? Not that He was a big believer in flossing.

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