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The Scents of Christmas
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Moore's
Chapel Home Missions & Evangelism Devotions
Beautiful Children's
Devotions - Teen
Devotions-
The
Walk To The Cross
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"This will be a sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped in strips of cloth lying in a manger" (Luke 2:12 NIV).
"Dad, can we go down to the barn and see the kittens?" Faith and Paul asked. We bundled up and trudged through the snow to the barn. As we opened the door, the smell of urine burned our eyes and nostrils. Steam from the cattle's body heat carried the scent of fresh manure throughout the barn. "Let's see the kittens and then get out of here," my teen-aged daughter urged. "My hair is going to smell just terrible after being here!" We did carry the odor of the barn's manure, old wooden beams, grain, and fresh straw back to the house with us. "This smells better," Paul announced as the aroma of roasting turkey greeted us at the door. But the true scent of the season clung to our clothes. The holy and pure
God had chosen to Thought: He became like us, so that we might become like Him.
© James N. Watkins |
Evergreen boughs. Fruitbreads. Wassail. Fresh- baked cookies. Frosty
winter air. Bayberry candles. The festive fragrances reminded our family
that this was Christmas Eve as we visited my wife's mother in Wisconsin.
arrive on earth, not between scented candles in a
tabernacle of cedar paneling, but in the stench and filth of a stable. And
in his sacrificial acts, he offered us the "fragrance of life" (2
Corinthians 2:16).