The Smells of Joy

Been a couple of weeks since I have done my blog but have a few minutes to pull my thoughts together on this holiday.  Much has happened in my life since I last wrote but today, as my wife begins the cooking process for our family meal tomorrow, I am impressed with the wonderful smells of Thanksgiving.  I love the food we will be blessed to experience tomorrow but this day with grand kids running in all directions bringing in snow from outside after rolling in it, NO I NEVER DID THAT, having quality time with our children and their spouses in a warm home, I found myself just breathing more lightly, smelling the coffee, listening to the conversations and smiling about how great life really is!  Then to be manicured, pedicured, back scratched and a new hair do by my three grand daughters, well, you get my point!

 

Now that the herd has departed for Thanksgiving meals with the spouses' families, Alicia is now underway cooking for our family meal tomorrow. I love the smells of Thanksgiving that are almost as satisfying to me as the food itself; well, sort of!  But what I love more than any of it are the experiences of this life that may be very good or perhaps not very good but resolve in greatness. Wow, doesn't that feel great when that happens? ANSWER: YES!

 

I was greatly pleased to work two jail services yesterday with my great friend, Pastor Neal Wheeler, in which we were about to bring church to roughly sixty men. The presence of the Lord was so evident and it was a pleasing aroma to know hearts had been touched and, prayerfully, that lives will be changed due to the experience those men had in song, in word and in prayer.  The smell of coffee inside the chapel seemed especially lifting in retrospect.

 

Last week while at The Cove of The Billy Graham Training Center in Asheville, NC. the smells of Fall wafted through the beautiful woods. The food, which was amazing, was part of the whole worship experience I believe but for me the food tasted even better with the beautiful contact with the people that served us at The Cove.  All were gentle, helpful, kind, funny and efficient plus that light North Carolina accent made the aroma of the whole experience even more of a blessing. 

 

So I have found joy in the woods of North Carolina, in the jail, in a beautiful Thanksgiving Eve service at my church last night and in my own home just in one week; wow, my smeller is overwhelmed but it is tempered with a deep sense of love for a God that provided all of this.  So on this day, take a deep breath, inhale the blessings all around you with family, friends and make it a point to call, text, email, smoke signal or scream loudly to someone that has made a difference in your life with their special fragrance!

 

For those of you that read this, please know how much I appreciate you and your touch on my life in word, comment, encouragement, and caring. Yep, feeling pretty blessed as I ready for my next major league inhale of some great smelling labor from the hands of my wife for I know she does it with her heart for our family; all smelling pretty good!