Mommy Perfume

As moms, we probably have an arsenal of perfume somewhere. We receive it as gifts from husbands, in-laws, children and the list goes on.

Some of the perfume I receive is used up and I search for another rare bottle because it is a favorite. Others are more of a decorative item--they give me a headache and I can't use them. They sit on my shelf unused.

I remember one Mother's Day when I was in grade school, my brother and sister and I wanted to buy our mom a gift but we didn't have any money. We discussed this with the neighborhood children and we came up with a plan.

No money? No problem. We would make perfume for our mothers. We scattered to our homes to gather all of the glass jars we could scavenge. In those days everything was glass and we never threw anything away so each of us showed up in our driveway with an assortment of mayonnaise, jam and peanut butter jars.

Someone brought soap and we washed the jars inside and out. Then we began to gather the good-smelling stuff. We collected Texas lawn weeds. Some of our lucky friends had rose bushes in their yards and they contributed the rose petals.

We stood looking down at the empty jars and the pile of wilting weeds and wondered, "How do you make perfume?"

We ended up mashing the weeds and petals and distributing them to the jars. Just add water--to top it off. My friends and I rejoiced to to have an entire case for each mom--12 or more jars.

Mom appropriately and gratefully thanked us upon receiving her gift. I always puzzled why she kept it under the kitchen sink rather than on her bedroom dresser where she kept the stuff from Dad.

I don't remember when it disappeared from it's special storage place. I always believed that Mom used it up.

As moms we have the awesome opportunity to spread the sweet fragrance of Christ in our homes or smell like something best left under the sink.

But thanks be to God, who in Christ

always leads us in triumphal procession,

and through us spreads the fragrance

of the knowledge of him everywhere.

For we are the aroma of Christ...

2 Corinthians 2:14-15

What are you wearing each day? Something foraged and mashed --or are you allowing the sweet aroma of Christ to breeze through you into your children's lives?

So good to know that I don't have to come up with the fragrance --just allow Him to be the sweet aroma through me--the atomizer.

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