For you coffee drinkers, there’s nothing like the aroma of your morning coffee percolating. Even for a tea drinker like me, I enjoy the smell of coffee.
What about trying to sell your house? You know that having a batch of just-baked chocolate chip cookies lures the buyers in.
When I have friends for dinner, I like to have a casserole in the oven that contains onion. M-m-m, a wonderful smell to welcome guests.
Just like color (Praising God for Color) and texture (Praising God for Texture), smell is a creative gift from above.
Don’t you love the smell of chocolates when you open that Valentine heart box?
From the Bible, you may remember that Issac lost his sense of sight in his old age. He was about to give his last blessing upon Esau, his favorite son, but Rebekah wanted the blessing bestowed on her favorite son, Jacob.
In order to trick Issac, she covered Jacob with animal skin both for the feel (Esau was hairy) and for the smell because Esau was a hunter.
Issac was suspicious because the voice sounded like Jacob. Issac also questioned how he had found the animal so quickly. He felt Jacob’s hands which were hairy like Esau’s. But the thing that finally persuaded him that Jacob must be Esau was when Issac caught the smell of his clothes. He said,
“Ah the smell of my son is like the smell of the field that the Lord has blessed.” Genesis 27:27
Of course we have unpleasant smells as well—broccoli cooking on the stove, bathroom odors, or a burnt pan. Boy, is that a bad one to get rid of!
Some bad smells can serve as a warning, like that burnt pan or the smell of smoke; they alert us to danger. Smelly milk or a rotten potato yells at us to throw it out!
When Jesus wanted to open Lazarus’ tomb, Martha worried about the smell of a four-day corpse. That was the reason they put myrrh, aloes, and other spices around the dead. Remember how the women were anxious to get to Jesus’ tomb early in the morning?
We are told as authors that the most powerful sense for us to include in our writings is the sense of smell. It immediately conjures up memories for people—chicken noodle soup, Vick’s Salve on your chest as a child, walking outside after a spring rain, your father’s aftershave, a dank, dark, musty basement, the smell of a baseball glove (and dirty socks to go with it), a dozen roses, hot dogs roasting over a campfire.
Such a variety of smells that define our world. I hope you have a whiff of something good today! Be intentional about thanking Him for the variety you experience.
~ Joyce ~