Fragrance of Christ

I’m re-blogging an old post that I just found via email, I thought it was gone forever!  Happy Birthday, Mom.  I miss you so much.

Momma loved her flowers. Come springtime, she couldn’t wait for that snow to melt and for the spring show to begin. Starting with the crocuses, she’d watch expectantly as one after the other, daffodils, tulips, peonies, lilacs, lilies and roses put on their colorful back yard performance. So enthralled she was with her blooming beauties, that she would clip bouquets of them with which to grace her tables inside, savoring and delighting in the fragrance that their beauty brought to her. Such joy she derived from their presence in her home.

Momma was like her flowers. She was participating in a show in God’s garden here on earth. She, like her flowers, didn’t have to strive to be beautiful, she just did what came naturally to her, and the beauty radiated from her as effortlessly as flowers bloom and share their fragrance.

The Apostle Paul said in 2 Corinthians 2:14-15 that Christ uses us to spread the fragrance of the knowledge of him everywhere.  We are the fragrance of Christ to God among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing. Momma was the fragrance of Christ! Ask anyone who knew her, ask anyone who came to visit her on her last week here on earth.

When Momma left God’s garden on earth to grace Heaven with her fragrance, she went, unafraid and eager to be united with her Lord. She spoke with a smile on her face and a sparkle in her eyes of “that wonderful homecoming day” when she would see Jesus face to face. He picked a beauty, and we miss her presence in our garden, but her fragrance still lingers here, in the memories of her smile, her wisdom and her many years of prayers that we are still seeing God’s answers to today!

Momma and her girls, 2001