The Heart Nose

The Heart Nose!

As I entered the fellowship hall that morning, I was greeted by an array of aromas.  Soup was on the menu for Pastor Appreciation Day and our church really knows how to cook.  The smells of chili, potato soup, chicken noodle, vegetable soup, cornbread, pumpkin pie, and my favorite- peanut butter fudge; all filtered right into the nose.  If I could gain weight by smelling, I would be 500#!  It doesn’t take long for those smells to go to the stomach.  As with any celebration we center it around our meal.  We laugh over food, we celebrate over food, and yes when someone dies, what do we do?  We cook; so we cry over food.  Something about smelling that food that comforts us.  Maybe when a tragedy happens and people; friends and neighbors, bring food it helps us remember the good times, the celebrations, the laughter that was shared over the same dishes. 

When I lift the lid on a pot the first thing I do is smell whats inside.  Don’t you?  Sure we are gonna taste it, but first…the smell.  When I smelled potato soup and cornbread, that smell didn’t go to my stomach it went to my heart.  I can remember 2009 when I was sick, pneumonia I believe, my mom called me.  She already had some mild dementia but was still able to do most of what she wanted with a little help.  When I smelled that, it took me right back as if it was yesterday.  Mommy would always make me potato soup and cornbread when I was sick, it always cured everything.  No matter what sickness I had or even how bad it was, Mommy's soup and cornbread made it better.  I tuck those little smells and memories away, they are down deep and hidden away.  Now when I have a bowl of that potato soup I can feel all the love Mommy had for me.  I remember the countless times she made it while I was at home and then after I married with kids of my own, they learned that same smell that went straight to the heart.

  

With the arrival of fall and chilly weather we have had a campfire on Sunday evenings.  They warm the hands but also the heart.  We gather around the fire and we listen to the age old familiar stories of Jesus and how He loves!  One of our neighbors said he was outside doing chores when he smelled smoke from our fire.  Looking at his watch he realized he was late for youth and campfire so he came on by and joined our circle of friends.  Its amazing to me how smells can trigger so much in so many.  When I smell a wood fire I smell home!  I don’t smell smoke I smell love.  I remember cold frosty mornings when Mommy would start a fire in the old cook stove in the kitchen to make biscuits and gravy.  Thats a whole smell in itself.  When I smell that fire burning, I also remember Mommy going up and down those stairs all winter long to check the fire.  To poke it up to keep the coals hot.  To take out the ashes and everything would be covered in the dust from the ashes.  I remember one time Mommy trying to teach me how to light the fire.  She had me to roll up a newspaper upstairs and I lit it from the wood stove.  She told me to carry it downstairs to the wood stove and light the kindling.  Well as I carried it downstairs the flames dripped on my hand and melted it like butter, still got the scar.

I can remember cutting firewood with Daddy and Steve all day long and stacking it in ricks, every little piece had to be just so!  So when I smell a fire burning, the smoke drifting to my nose, I smell home, I smell love.  I smell hugs and unconditional love all wrapped up in the smells that waft through the air to my nose and they go straight to my heart 

Ephesians 5:2

And walk in love, just as Christ also loved you and gave Himself up for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God as a fragrant aroma.