Golden Bowl

Whenever the girls and I are going to travel somewhere I give them an approximate time of departure. Leah is usually out in the van anywhere from ten to twenty minutes before time, just sitting and waiting. She's a lot like her momma, trying to find any alone time (with her own noise) she can. Rachel gets out there a few minutes before time, then I come out with all my stuff. We wait a little while for Hannah, who usually is hurrying out the door with her shoes in one hand and a jacket or extra shirt, purse, and make up bag in the other so she can finish getting ready on the way. After all the doors are closed and we're heading down the driveway the power of the aroma hits me.

I started really thinking about it the other day. The aroma thing gets its start earlier in the day with three different scents of body mousse in the bath. Add to that three different kinds of deodorant, flavors of toothpaste, and lip gloss. Then comes the lotion, different scents, of course, and then the biggest hit of all: three different perfumes. Quite a bit of the different perfumes, might I add. Sometimes that is even added after the doors are closed on the van.

I keep ibuprofen in the vehicle.

I really like having girls that sometimes shower a couple of times a day and want to smell nice. I think that's a really good thing. When I think about it, it makes me smile.

Back in the fall, one of our students' truck wasn't working and his parents were out of town. They asked if I could pick him up from football practice and take him to his house to clean up and then to Open House at the high school. Hannah and I went to get him at the field house and as soon as he got into the van I smiled. He had that familiar locker room smell that I hadn't smelled in several years. Locker room smell isn't a bad smell to me. I immediately went back in my heart to when the boys were playing sports and how I missed that. It was a good thing. Made me smile.

The other day I read a verse in Revelation 5 that said, "And when He had taken the book, the four living creatures and the twenty four elders fell down before the Lamb, having each one a harp, and golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints." I couldn't get that out of my mind. These golden bowls presented to the Lamb of God were full of the sweet scent of our prayers for our husbands, our children, our families, our church, our soldiers. Then my mind kept going and I started thinking that maybe when they pour it out He won't smell anything from me. Or not enough from me. Some days may be more than others, depending on the need.

Oh, sweet, sweet Jesus. I want to be so intimate with You that one bowl is not enough. To enter into Your Holiest place so often that the elders are scrambling for more golden bowls. My heart hurts at the thought that a bowl might be emptied at Your feet and You smell nothing from me. I want so bad for You to get a whiff of all the different scents from the prayers that come together and smell so beautiful. I'm desperate to hear from You that I've done a good thing. I so want to make You smile.