Smelling the Colors

"the green tree dried up"

Ezekiel 17:24

My house smells wonderful today.  Like orange and green.

Well, not like orange and green, the colors.  Although that would be so cool if you could smell colors.  Makes me wish I had that kind of synesthesia. 

No, my home actually smells like oranges and evergreen.  Oranges, because I'm making orange juice.  I got a bag of homemade oranges a few weeks ago, and I feel like they're not gonna last much longer, so I decided to juice them.  I like juicing oranges ~ I get to tailor the pulp content.  But I don't just love the juice, I love the process of juicing.  The fragrance is amazing:  from the juice, from the pulp, from the rind... The cutting, the squeezing... all of it brings out that wonderful smell.

And my home smells like evergreen because I've been de-Christmassing my house.  I know; a lot of you are done already, but I've had several busy days since Christmas.  It's not that I've done nothing, but I'm far from done. 

The tree is mostly down.  The ornaments are put away, which means all that was left was taking apart the tree.  Except we don't have a "take apart" tree; we have a real tree.  I've come to love that tree since it came into our home, just as I do every year, and I'm reluctant to get rid of it.  But my husband insists.  Every year.  Something about being a fire hazard, blah blah blah...  ;-)

So anyhow, every year when I take down the tree, I remove all the lights, and then all the ornaments, and then the branches.  I get out the clippers, and remove the branches one at a time.  I like doing it that way because it enables me to really be sure I didn't leave any ornaments in there, but I also because I just really appreciate the tree.  It's so interesting to see how the branches are distributed on the trunk... where they are clustered and where they are more spread out.  The thickness of the branches. 

Plus every year we try to get a different variety of evergreen tree (Noble, Nordmann, Grand, Douglas, etc) and it's interesting to note the differences between them.  How are the needles clustered?  Are they completely green or is there a silver or blue tint to them?  Getting to know the tree closely is the only way to do that. 

And then there's the smell.  The evergreen smell comes out so strongly when you cut into the branches and bend or break the needles. 

And it occurred to me, while enjoying these two perfumes, that both of these smells came to me so strongly because I was "abusing" the items.  Cutting, squeezing, bending, breaking, squishing... All of these unkindnesses brought out something wonderful.

Just a reminder, if you're doing through something difficult... He's bringing out something beautiful.  You are a sweet fragrance to Him.

~ "we are to God the fragrance of Christ" ~

2 Corinthians 2:15

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