All day, a strange odor wafts through the entryway, the kitchen, the living room, and the hallway. I'm actually on my knees, sniffing to discover the source.
"Can you smell that?" I ask everyone who comes by the house.
Finally, I trace the odor to the corner of the garage where I spy a tiny hole in the wall. My husband comes home, and I just point my finger and declare, "Something is in there."
I run to safety inside the house (I'm a chicken) and leave my brave and wonderful husband alone in the garage. With a flashlight and tools to cut into the wall, he finds the source of the impossibly foul and impressively permeating smell.
A tiny, deceased chipmunk.
Within a few minutes of removing the odor source, the entire atmosphere changes.
All morning, I consider the power of that one small thing to overtake the whole environment. That little thing became impossibly foul and impressively permeating. I thought of my own life and those small things that inevitably change the atmosphere: negativity, complaining, gossip, suspicion--all the not-flair that can overtake a life.
I'm on a mission to search and root out the smallest things that I imagine cannot really harm. Actually, they do. They quickly become impossibly foul and impressively permeating. Living with flair means removing that odor source. I pray God shows me quickly and thoroughly.
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Journal: What foul smelling thing do we need to remove in our lives?
2 comments:
This was excellent Heather! What a great point about all the little things that can spoil so much if we allow them into our lives. Jesus reminded His disciples to beware the leaven of the Pharisees. As we know, a little leaven can make the whole bread rise. So...a little sin can spoil the entire outlook on life. We do have to be watchful to avoid these pitfalls. Thanks for the poignant reminder my friend! You are living with Flair!
Yes, & you also remind me how even a small thing I might do, a word of encouragement, a smile or a simple gesture of help, might permeate the life of another with a beautiful fragrance.
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