Romancing The Rock

Lately, I keep noticing different smells wherever I go. I walk past the bus stop in semi-darkness around 6am and smell perfume. Ah, someone has just caught the bus, I think. I walk out of my office into the hallway and I can smell men’s cologne. And I know who has just walked past. I even entered the ladies toilets and smelled fragrance (not the usual kind of toilet odour, you understand), and I knew a perfumed lady had just been there.

Then I thought about Mary, when she poured all that perfume on Jesus’ feet.  The bible says the whole house was filled with the fragrance (John 12: 3). That room would have smelled like spikenard for days afterward. Did people wonder what had taken place when they smelled it. Did the room still hold an atmosphere of gratitude and worship?

It made me think. What kind of aroma do I leave in a room when I leave, and I’m not talking about physical smells now, but atmosphere. Do I leave tension in my wake? Or anger? Or do I leave pleasant feelings like joy, peace or encouragement? I hope and pray it is the latter. What aroma do you leave in a room?

“But thanks be to God, who always leads us as captives in Christ’s triumphal procession and uses us to spread the aroma of the knowledge of him everywhere. For we are to God the pleasing aroma of Christ among those who are being saved and those who are perishing. To the one we are an aroma that brings death; to the other, an aroma that brings life. And who is equal to such a task?” [2 Corinthians 2:14-16 NIV]