There's a magnet on my refrigerator door with a picture of a little girl holding 
a long-stemmed rose. Her eyes sparkle as if the aroma from the rose is an absolute
delight. On the back of the magnet a friend had written a note to me: "May you 
be the sweet fragrance of life wherever you go." - Corinthians 2:14-16

I hadn't thought of that magnet in months, until today. I'd been short-tempered 
at work and had retreated into the restroom to cool down and to repent. As I 
asked God to forgive me, He reminded me of the magnet and its message. 

Yet I wasn't sure I understood how to be that heavenly fragrance. The essence of 
Christ is love, but what does love smell like? 

"Why, it smells like sautéed onions, of course," popped into my mind. I remembered 
the day that I first discovered that truth. I recalled sitting on the bed. I was
exhausted. Then the most heavenly aroma wafted upstairs, tantalizing me. Sautéed 
onions. My husband was preparing dinner. "That's the fragrance of love," I 
thought. Those sizzling onions spoke of my husband's care and sacrifice for me. 
I knew that he was tired too, but out of his love for me, he was fixing dinner. 
No roses, chocolate or perfume ever smelled so sweet as those onions did on that day. 

So I began to wonder about how many times the fragrance of love comes to us, and 
is experienced by us, without ever being recognized. As I meditated on this, a 
variety of scenes rushed through my mind, and with them, a diversity of scents 
that carried the message, "I love you." 

As a father comes in from the fields after working a 12-hour day to provide for 
his family, love smells like sweat and fertilizer. Love is also the powdery aroma
of fresh-baked, homemade biscuits that a mother prepares early in the morning for 
her family's breakfast. 

It's the meaty aroma of chicken soup brought over by a friend who heard that you 
were under the weather. Or it can be the faint odor of gasoline on a stranger who 
stopped to help when you ran out of gas. 

As we walk in the principles of God's Word, our lives manifest God's love that 
draws people to the Savior. 

Love has many expressions, many fragrances. But the fragrance of love that is 
more costly than any other aroma or perfume was made one time, for all time. 
It is the fragrance of Jesus' love poured out at the cross for us. 

I took out my Bible and read once again the Scripture verses cited on my magnet: 
"Now thanks be to God who always leads us in triumph in Christ, and through us 
diffuses the fragrance of His knowledge in every place. For we are to God the 
fragrance of Christ among those who are being saved and among those who are 
perishing. To the one we are the aroma of death leading to death, and to the 
other the aroma of life leading to life. And who is sufficient for these things?"
(2 Corinthians 2:14-16, NKJV) 

As I read the words of verse 15, "For we are to God the fragrance of Christ...",
I thought of how awesome it is that the Father looks down on us and catches the 
aroma of Christ whispering that we belong to Him. 

By Pat Banta Kreml