When I was a slip of a funny girl in high school, I proudly wore the drug store perfume called “Oleg Cassini”. I wore it when I kissed my first boy, and I wore it until the second boy I dated bought me “Lauren” by Ralph Lauren.

As a middle creative, lately I’ve been making up ways to add gentle, all natural fragrance…

…to my art!

That, and The Preacher just got back home from a series of crusades and pastor’s conferences in Guatemala. Those two ideas - his return home, and fragrance - are connected. I hope to explain that connection.

I picked him up from our local airport night before last. As I drove us home, the sunset all peach and blue and gentle, he began (as he always does) to tell me the stories he has collected in his time away from home.

But this time was different. Oh, the stories were the same, but something in the spiritual atmosphere in that Ford Lariat became heavy and sweet. Wave after wave of the Presence of God washed over me, as I navigated at 70mph down the freeway, other vehicles, including ours, beginning to switch on their headlights to drive back the advancing darkness.

He talked and fell silent for a moment. I could tell that he was trying to contain some very big feelings. The Tennessee river reflected the last of that day’s light as we went over the bridge. Suddenly, so help me, a precious fragrance began to pervade the cab of the truck.

Of the two of us, I was the only one aware of it.

I knew it had zero to do with the art I’d made in the days Tim was gone.

It had everything to do with the fact that he had been with Jesus. Very, very recently.

Now, strictly theologically speaking, I understand that Jesus had never left Tim, nor Tim Jesus. Of course, Immanuel is always “with us”. But there is a distinct difference…a distinct odor…to the spiritual atmosphere of a believer who has been consciously connecting to the Holy Spirit. There is an aroma that only is manufactured in the courts of heaven. There is a spice that remains on the spirit of one who has been walking on mission with the Lord.

I know when someone’s been in the same room with Jesus for longer than their cursory quiet time, and for more intimate reasons than routine. This has happened to me before. When it happens, it is, quite literally, mildly intoxicating.

I smelled it once, when turning the pages of the magazine Eden and Vine. And I promptly fell asleep and had a vision that came to me as a dream.

I’ve smelled it in worship at my church.

This does not happen all the time, or even often. But in the last two years, either my prophetic gift has grown a nose…

…or my secret dream of becoming a spiritual Shulamite Woman is coming to pass, as I roll right on past age 55. Apparently, youth is not a prerequisite for perfume or passion. I long for that secret place, and I also long to manifest that place out into my physical world.

See, the thing about fragrance is that you must re-apply.

Thankfully, I still do not smell of Oleg Cassini or Lauren.

These days, I waft a bit of “Earth and Wood” essential oil, or a spritz of Acqua Di Parma’s Blu Mediterraneo , because: Italy. And because: Blue.

I can’t apply Blu on a Monday, and still be blessing my husband with it on a Friday night. I have to reapply.

And if you ever shake his hand, and he smells like a girl…well, that is because he has been very close to me, very recently.

That’s the thing about fragrance. It reeks of whoever you’ve really, truly been with. Or it reeks of what you consciously and regularly choose to apply.

May we be as those who have been with Jesus - may we be those who have broken the alabaster box of our supposed dignity at the feet of Christ.