I Love What My Nose Can Do

The gift of smell is very precious to me. I use my smell gift constantly in my daily living. We don’t often think about the sense as being as important as the sense of sight or hearing, but to me, it means a bunch. My smell sense gives me pleasure and pain. I smell everything…the skin on my arm….a blanket or towel taken from the dryer…hmmmmmm….that precious baby that spent the weekend here……freshly cut grass……my husband’s neck fresh from the shower…...food in all its forms including my Starbucks chai tea…….. body lotions…..I even choose my deodorant by its smell. I make laundry decisions based on how the item smells to me…is it a fresh smell or an unpleasant smell? Then there are the smells that send me over the edge……cheap perfume……..cigarettes……liquor……dirty dishes…….. the garbage bag…… Smells also warm me of danger….what is that smell like a burning motor?.......something rotten?........something awry?

Now you are thinking I’m a complete wacko and you’re wondering what got me to thinking about smells. I’ll tell you. I walked in the guest room this morning to dust the glass top on the dresser. As I dusted, I smelled Ken’s mother’s house. Yep….I did ….no mistaking it. Ken’s mother has been out of her house for at least eight years and has been in glory for around five years. BUT, I could still smell the aroma of her house coming from her bedroom set that now serves us in our guest room.

Can you smell those great big black pencils and wide lined paper we used in first grade? I can. I smell them as I think of them. I can be in that little seat in DeMotte Christian School by just smelling a pencil or certain types of paper.

A few weeks ago, I was driving one way down the road and passed my husband in his car going the other way. All the windows were rolled up in both cars. As I passed him, I smelled a lit cigarette. When I told him later that I had smelled that cigarette, he told me I was plum crazy…….no one can smell a cigarette in a passing car. Oh yes, I can. He actually got irritated with me for my claim.

Last January, I pulled up to an Episcopal church on a Sunday morning around noon. I liked the architecture and stopped to take a picture. The priest stepped outside the door and invited me in to take pictures on the inside which I thought was a gracious gesture. His comment was, I just put away the incense so there will be a sweet smell in there. I smiled as I realized that he too valued aromas. God values the sweet smell of incense that rises with the prayers of His people to Him……..

Revelation 8:3
2-4I saw the Seven Angels who are always in readiness before God handed seven trumpets. Then another Angel, carrying a gold censer, came and stood at the Altar. He was given a great quantity of incense so that he could offer up the prayers of all the holy people of God on the Golden Altar before the Throne. Smoke billowed up from the incense-laced prayers of the holy ones, rose before God from the hand of the Angel.