February
21, 2014
Dear Ones,
I could hear them coming, the elevator bell,
the laughter, the chatter, the opening of doors, the rustle of jackets and
scarves being pulled off, and then the burst through the door with the exclamations
of “We knew you were here, we could smell it, the cinnamon and the fresh baked
sweet of whatever it is- what is it, can we eat it now?!?!?!” I had to smile as bodies all gathered round hands’
reaching for muffins pulled fresh from the oven, they all chattered about how
they came out of the cold stepped into the elevator and KNEW I was cooking, as
they looked at one another and exclaimed… “mmmmm Mariah.”
I thought about it and just had to share, it
is something you may not know about my world here but that is lots of fun to
give you a glimpse of. I am known in the
House as being the creative one with a lot of things but food is one of those
creative outlets, the “family” tends to give me a hard time in a loving way
that I am the one who takes all the left overs or the random items of food that
have been brought or left behind and turns them into good…maybe even incredibly
good dishes of food that we all enjoy.
It is something I love doing- taking what is left behind, what is about
to go bad, the things that no one else can find a use for or know what to do with
and turning it into something wonderful that literally draws people from all
over the house
into the kitchen. There are a couple of
interns who would laugh and say, “There she goes again with that, essentially
utilizing resources.” But hey, I never
heard them complain about the cooking!
Is it not amazing how the smell of something wonderful draws you in beckoning
you to come just as a stench causes you to draw back or turn away? We miss smells, aromas of home, of a special
person, the wafting fragrance lingering, we hate smells, things that taint, the
smell of death, or rotting, our sense of smell tells us to come to dinner, to
sip our coffee, that there are fresh baked cookies, that someone was in the
elevator, and I hope it was not right after they took out the bags of diapers,
it tells us to run from danger,
to clean out the fridge, or fix the broken pipes, we smell water, fresh snow, blooming
roses, gardens, produce, dirt, streets filled with carts and people, formula on
baby’s breath, and the list could go on and on…
“But thanks be to God, who leads us in triumph in Christ,
and manifests through us the sweet aroma of the knowledge of Him in every
place. For we are a fragrance of Christ
to God among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing: to
the one an aroma from death to death, to the other an aroma from life to
life. And who is adequate for these
things?”
II Corinthians 2:14-16
What fragrance do I leave behind, what smell do
people miss when I am gone, what aroma enters the room when I come in? Is it Christ living in me or is it something
rotting, are others drawn to it longing to linger, to simply sit and take it in
or are they ready to run from the gagging or the danger. My prayer today...
"Lord, make my life a living fragrance of You…"
By
His Grace alone,
Mariah
