To Catch A Scent

Several days ago as I went from wash machine to lunch prep to trash removal to whatever else, I kept catching whiffs of an incredibly offensive scent. After the fifth inhalation, I wondered if perhaps a small rodent had died in our dirt-floor basement, but after a quick check, assumed the normal microscopic-fecal-matter-transfer-to-my-nostril had yet again occurred (if you are so desperately inclined to find out more about such transfers, you can read deeper here).

As it turned out, it was neither fecal or festering rodent carcus-related. It was me.

It was me wearing my new "natural" deodorant. When my dear husband instinctively recoiled at my open arms as he walked through the back door, I decided it would be better to die young by way of harmful chemicals absorbed through the armpit, than to live a long life at arm's length from those I love. 

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At the turn of my eleventh year, when puberty was beginning to introduce it's awkward self to my gangly frame, my totally cool aunt gave me a bottle of perfume that sat among others on her totally cool dresser that I would stand at when she wasn't home and covet everything upon it's surface. It was JonTue and it used to be hers but now it was mine. I smelled like Aunt Lou and I smelled F-I-N-E. Never one for the subtle approach, I would generously pump twice behind my earlobes and crook of each arm (because those were the "hot spots" my mother's Ladies Home Journal suggested for optimal fragrance distribution. The fact that I was a loyal reader of LHJ at age eleven should explain why I was date-less at age sixteen, but that's  for another post). Bottom line, when I was eleven and walked into a room, you would have seen Jeane` and smelled JonTue. The scent enveloped me and was unleashed at every shake of the head and extension of outstretched arm. My motto could have easily been: If you like JonTue, you'll love Jeane`.

This morning I had fragrance on the brain.
My thoughts skipped from my first perfume, to another old favorite ("Navy"), to the new Jessica Simpson perfume I recently tested and liked. And then, as thoughts oft do, they took me back to the day where I kept catching that awful scent that turned out to be my natural self. Going deeper then skin, the Spirit who lives within reminded me that I am, on my own, a scent to be caught and released quickly.I am naturally stinky.

However, I am not my own anymore. I am part of Him. Through the deep and available grace of God, I have been given this ability to live life Loved...and because I am Loved, I can choose to let that Love seep out of my pores. When His Love seeps out of me, it is a scent that others want to catch and breath in deeply.

I love how God reminds me of His 'best' for me. He can use stinky armpits and reminiscing of first perfumes to nudge me back into good living. 

In the Messiah, in Christ, God leads us from place to place in one perpetual victory parade. Through us, he brings knowledge of Christ. Everywhere we go, people breathe in the exquisite fragrance. Because of Christ, we give off a sweet scent rising to God, which is recognized by those on the way of salvation—an aroma redolent with life. But those on the way to destruction treat us more like the stench from a rotting corpse.

~2 Corinthians 2:15