Winsday Wisdom 228
Smells can remind us of particular people and places.
It happened again last Sunday in church. As we sang an old hymn (which has become far too rare), I could smell my grandmother. She was not there, only a pleasant memory of the times I stood beside her in church as a six-year-old boy and sang this hymn: When We All Get to Heaven.
When we all get to Heaven
What a day of rejoicing that will be!
When we all see Jesus,
We’ll sing and shout the victory.
I closed my eyes as I softly sang the words. I was back next to my grandmother. Her smell was distinct, some strange concoction of her love of onions mixed with an old lady’s perfume. But it was her aroma of love for Jesus and love for me that filled my head with sweet memories and my eyes with tears.
She is now singing in heaven with my dad and her four boys. She probably had the quartet singing while she played her organ. All in heaven, happily singing Beulah Land or Leaning on the Everlasting Arms. I could see it with eyes of faith. I could smell it with the nose of love’s memories.
Certain smells can ignite nostalgic memories. Other scents can evoke association with specific experiences.
I imagine you have moments like that, where the fragrance of a beloved person or special place wafts into your memory. You sense them there with you again. Your body momentarily transports to a wonderful time and place associated with that odor.
Music can have that same effect. Songs can take our mind and heart back to people and places. I will save that for another Winsday.
This is about distinctive smells and what they do to our mind and heart. Favorite smells. Fragrant smells of a special person. Recognizable aromas. Even hideous odors can resurrect dead memories.
One time on a family road trip late at night, the smell of smoke from burning leaves drifted into our car. My wife remarked that was her favorite smell.
About thirty minutes later, our air was interrupted with another outside odor. Our younger son prematurely spoke up that this was his favorite smell. Then we all quickly recognized the stink from a skunk. It takes a while for that smell to evaporate. The story associated with that trip has never dissipated.
My grandkids will remember the smell of Babe’s fresh baked cookies.
I love the scent of clean sheets. The smell of the ocean breeze.
I remember the aroma of loved ones. Family scents of a spouse and each child.
We often associate smells with people and places.
The pleasant smells of a newborn baby. Burning wood in the fireplace. Scented candle. Beautiful flowers. Freshly brewed coffee. Pleasant perfume or cologne. Fresh air after it rains. Baked bread. Cool mountain breeze. Freshly cut Christmas tree. New car. Popcorn. A whiff of cinnamon rolls in the oven.
The stinky smells of a baby’s diaper. The sweat from a sports’ locker room. Sour milk. Filthy rags. Burned toast. A skunk. Sewage. Stinky feet.
Onions, garlic, eggs, bacon, bonfires, lavender or citrus potpourri, marijuana, or cigarette smoke are pleasant or odious depending on the nostrils of the smeller.
Scientific research claims that vanilla is the most universally preferred odor. Fresh peaches were also high on the list. Preferences turn out to be based more on personal likes than cultural influence.
A specific scent linked to a pleasant memory of a loved one can boost your mood. In some circumstances, it might elicit a few tears from their absence.
Sometimes the sweet aroma lingers. Sometimes the stinky stench stays for a while.
Some people go through life always smelling the roses. Others always smell a rat. Sport competitors often smell blood as they sense the opponents’ vulnerability.
God’s #1 Textbook has a lot to say about how we smell as we go through life. The fragrance of Jesus in us is a sweet aroma to others (2 Corinthians 2:15).
Jesus LIVES in us to LEAD us to others He intends to LOVE through us.
When we Love First and Love Most, we leave behind the pleasant aroma of Christ’s love. We are the fragrance of Jesus wherever we go.
The most important part is how we smell to God. We can become a sweet-smelling fragrance of love to God and others (Philippians 4:18) or stink things up to the highest heaven (Jonah 1:2).
For whatever reason, sometimes we really stink up a relationship.
How do you smell to God and others this week?
Keep loving first and most. Love covers a multitude of stink (1 Peter 4:8).
Our love is a Jesus-like fragrance rising up to God (2 Corinthians 2:15). The previous verse describes us as surrendered to God, led by Jesus, and purposefully living to love others first and most with the same love Jesus shows us.
What aroma are you spreading around and leaving behind? What fragrance will remind your loved ones of your presence?
You probably share the same thought I have. I need to do better.
However, the key to that is the word surrendered. When Jesus takes control of us, He cleans up the stink, changes the sheet coverings, and uses us for His sweet-smelling purpose. Then Jesus loves through us.
It is God who is at work in you, giving you the desire and the power to live and love like Jesus (Philippians 2:13).
Therefore, WALK IN LOVE JUST AS CHRIST LOVED US, and GAVE HIMSELF UP for us as a FRAGRANT offering and sacrifice to God (Ephesians 5:2).
This love is a sweet aroma-filled “walk” through life. Walking implies purpose, direction, action, and progress.
What is your part in this heavenly fragrance? GIVE YOURSELF UP. Give yourself up to God. Give yourself up for the good of others.
That is the aroma of love that lasts. It will last beyond your lifetime. Someday in the future, a song or smell will remind a person of you…and heaven.
Then we can join not only in the pleasing fragrance of Jesus’ love, but also the chorus singing, “When we all get to Heaven, what a day of rejoicing that will be…”
Rejoicing to be with those we so dearly miss now. To be with those who will follow the path strewn with our sweet aroma of Christ’s love.
I cannot say it enough to myself and to those of you who might listen.
Jesus LIVES in us to LEAD us to others He intends to LOVE through us.
Smell the sweet aroma of Christ’s love. Take it with you wherever you go. Give yourself up to love someone else first and most!
There is no sweeter smell on earth or in heaven!
LOVE FIRST...LOVE MOST 