Body Odor: How Do You Smell to Others?

I have a sensitive nose. More sensitive than the average person, I'm afraid. My sister-in-law constantly asks me if her children's diapers need changing because-she convincingly laments-that she just can't smell it. Hmm...I may be getting duped, but she DOES say it sweetly. (As a side note: I can't imagine how much more sensitive my smell will be when I'm pregnant. I've heard it only exacerbates it.)


Anyway...my sensitive nose has helped me pick out great perfumes, be attracted to tantalizing cologne, and smell sweet fruits, flowers, rain, and the great outdoors. But, it has also brought bad smells to my nose (and can be annoying or helpful): fish, rotten or moldy food, cigarette smoke, and (ahem!) unpleasantries on sidewalks or on lawns. 


Just the other day, I walked past a freshly-budding lilac bush. They smell so good. Amazing, really. Their fragrance permeates the air around the delicate little flowers and every time I walk by a lilac bush, I never want to breathe out. I just want to inhale it continuously and not stop smelling. Apple blossoms are even more enticing to me. I seek out the smell, linger in it, wish it lasted longer. I'm attracted to it.


Christ's fragrance is the same.

"For we are to God the fragrance of Christ among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing." 2 Corinthians 2: 15 (NKJV)

And yet, there are smells that repulse me. A group of people walked by me the other day and I smelled cigarette smoke. Immediately my nose curled and I tried to stop breathing in the smell, the distasteful odor.

How do I "smell" to others? Is the cloud around me that of love, compassion, kindness, positivity, and patience? Is it the same way with my fragrance? Do people linger in my presence? Do they wish they didn't have to leave? Am I the "fragrance of Christ"? As winter and spring battle and spring slowly, surely, deftly wins, new fragrances abound. I pray that I will be the fragrance of Christ as I awake from my winter slumber. I want to serve. I want to get my hands dirty for Christ. I want those who are being saved and those who are perishing to know me by the fragrance of Christ dripping, oozing, emanating from me continuously. 


I want to be fragrant and dripping with Christ...and attract others with His love. I don't want others to be turned off by impatience, negativity towards others, melancholy days, anger, bitterness, or anything that doesn't sniff of the Glory of God. Nope. I want to attract others with the fragrance of His beauty.

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