Smells Like Home

Daily Gratitude Year 5-Day 245: Today, I am grateful for things that smell like home.

Scents are all about perspective and personal preferences. 

We all take in our world through our senses. For me, scent drives memories, helps me access my environment and is easily offended. My nose is pretty sensitive. 

It is important to me that my house smells good.. cozy... fresh and inviting. Unfortunately, too many fragrance aides are just not to our tastes. We like herbal, clean, citrus and spicy. Man friendly scents, too. 

Every time I find a favorite, it gets discontinued. It keeps me on the hunt. Then... the rest of the clan has to agree to it. Adventure can be found in the oddest places, right? 

Last night, it struck me how the same scent can be offensive to one and beloved to another. My youngest is home for a visit this weekend. He worked out of town this summer. He commented that he rolled off the interstate with windows down and immediately took in the "unique to home" scent of the pumpkins being processed at Libby's pumpkin plant. His comment, "I love that smell.". 

It struck me how those of us transplanted here rarely say that. Honestly, except when the pie filling is being canned... I don't find the smell all that pleasant. The scent of "pumpkin guts" returning to the earth... well... not exactly a scent Glade is looking to capture... but for some, it smells like fall and home. It announces... in a breath... that Pumpkin Festival is near and friends will gather once again as fall begins. (11 Days until Apple Cider Slushies and Pumpkin Donuts have arrived at Kroger.)

There are times I wonder at the scent of heaven. So many struggle for breath as earthly bodies fail. How the soul must rejoice at the first breath of heaven. I know it doesn't smell like pumpkins cooking. I imagine it is fresh and clean beyond anything we might imagine. 

As we grow nearer to the heart of Christ, do worldly scents become more offensive? Perhaps, the smells that accompany the lost, the hurting and the needy will tug at our hearts instead of causing us to turn away. Our hearts are a work in progress...as they change... it might impact what we smell and our priorities. Remember Mary and the expensive perfume?

Then Mary took about a pint of pure nard, an expensive perfume; she poured it on Jesus’ feet and wiped his feet with her hair. And the house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume. -John 12:3

Costly perfume. Fragrant. Poured out over the feet of Jesus. I love this phrase:
"And the house was filled with the fragrance"... 

It was her gift, her offering and an act of love and service. The fragrance would be long remembered. Perhaps, even on the evening of the crucifixion... and again that first Easter morning. Every time she would smell nard... she would think of her time with Jesus and long for home... her heavenly home. 

Today, I am grateful for things that smell like home.