I recognize her smell

As I told you my son Andrew is tenderhearted. It is interesting because this sensitivity to emotions seems to make him sensitive to his senses too. I wonder if there has been a study on such things.

When we moved to Atwater, CA the air was a little bit hard for us to get used to. In case you are in need of an olfactory experience just sniff dairies, feed lots and chicken farms. There is the occasional smell of roasting garlic and onion in the air when the wind blows the right way from that processing plant, but the other smells...oh my.

Drew has always been sensitive to smells. From the time he was tiny smells have attacked his little nostrils with a vengeance. He was two and a half when we pulled into town and every time he smelled the stinky air he would ask, "What is that?" We got used to telling him, "It's cow poopoo." Well, it is! For a while he would ask and we would give the same answer. It didn't take long until he would just say, all on his own, "Oh, cow poopoo" when the air was especially noxious.

His odor detecting ability has gotten sensitive to something else lately. There isn't any getting away from the stinky things but he is beginning to appreciate more and more the beautiful things.

This summer we partnered with our school district to serve food for families in need. It was a wonderful experience. Some of the people we had helping got really involved--they came almost everyday! Incredible. Lisa helped the kids with some crafts while others ate. Drew loved being near Lisa, helping her, learning from her and apparently smelling her. I will admit that she always smells very good. She is one of those people that has selected just the right fragrance--it isn't too strong but it is memorable. Drew leaned over to me in our kitchen one day and said, "I can recognize Lisa by her smell." I loved it.

But it wasn't just cute kid stuff it brought tears to my eyes. He never would have recognized Lisa's smell just from Sunday morning church. He had seen her many, many times before this summer and he never commented on this before. It took that day to day interaction with her for him to put a name, a person, a love with a certain fragrance. But as the summer went on that very thing happened.

I want to be the kind of person that people recognize by my smell. Now, I am not talking about the lotion I wear, but the scent of love coming from me. I don't want to be the kind of person that enters a room or a place and someone says, "Oh, cow poopoo." Instead I want to share life, be so close to people and to God, that people will say, "I can recognize Olivia by her smell and I can tell she has been with Jesus."