A Sweet-smelling Savor

Lilacs!  I hadn't noticed these for years, having lived for half a lifetime in the south where they are not common.  But lately I have seen several bushes of the fragrant, lavender clusters. I did have a friend in Mississippi who had a bush that she called lilacs (she pronounced them "lilocks").  Perhaps she had transplanted it from her native Kansas, or maybe it was the drooping, purple clusters of wisteria, a vine which we had in our yard, as well.

I read that lilacs are members of the olive family. We had a couple of sweet olive shrubs growing beside our house when we lived in Mississippi.  I remember sitting in the yard one day when we first moved there and catching a hint of an undefinable fragrance wafted on the breeze.  It was indescribably sweet and pleasant, but I could not detect its source. After a few seasons, I identified the  heavenly perfume as coming from some tiny white flowers on a gangly, woody bush growing among the azaleas. I learned it was sweet olive. If the scent of the lilacs I see around town is as intoxicating, they must be related!

Today as I waited in the car while my husband bought gasoline for our lawn mower, I noticed a couple crossing the street from the neighborhood grocery to the service station.  I thought they seemed animated in their conversation, but as they got closer and their hand gestures were more pronounced and frequent, I realized they were deaf and using sign language!  They seemed pleasant and in a good mood, obviously enjoying one another's company.

I was reminded of that a little later when I turned on the computer and saw a Facebook post of a friend who had attended a talent competition for the handicapped.  It was called "The Unstoppables," an organization designed to inspire confidence in and help young women achieve their dreams and use their talents despite their physical limitations.  One could see in the countenance of the contest winner, a soloist, the shy pride she felt in her new-found self-esteem.

Whether this is a Christian organization or not, I don't know, but I think the principles found in the Bible apply.  II Corinthians 2: 14 says, "Now thanks be unto God, which always causeth us to triumph in Christ, and maketh manifest the savour of his knowledge by us in every place. (15) For we are unto God a sweet savour of Christ, in them that are saved, and in them that perish."

We are to be winners in Christ, and to give off the sweet-smelling savour of Him!  What better way than to help the disadvantaged  realize their own sweet-smelling savour!  Even as the unlikely-looking olive shrub was the source of the heady fragrance in my yard, we never know what is in people that is just waiting to be discovered!