Tuesday, February 10, 2015

Stanky

Funny thing. My husband has worked on vehicles as a mechanic for years, but recently he was given a desk job where he mostly does paperwork. He gets home every evening and kisses me hello and then makes some comment about how stinky he is and how he needs to take a shower. For some reason, this always strikes me as odd. How do you sit behind a desk in a climate-controlled office building and still end up smelling all stanky by the end of the day? It's not as if there is any physical exertion taking place here. Yet, he lathers up and douses globs of deodorant onto his underarms so that I will want to snuggle close to him, and it works.

I was soaking in the bathtub this evening and just before I sunk down into the sudsy water, I got a whiff of my underarms, and well, sorry if this is TMI, but they were a little on the musty side. And you know what I'd been doing all day? Nothing. Laying in bed. Zero physical exertion.

I settled into the lavender and ylang ylang scented bubbles and thought about this, and I wondered how being sedentary can still make you stink.

Okay, I'll go ahead and admit this now and get it over with: I tend to over think, over analyze and occasionally even over spiritualize things. It's who I am. Feel free to disregard what I'm about to say next, as it totally falls into at least one, if not all of those categories.

I wonder if we don't get soul-stank when we develop sedentary spiritual habits and attitudes. We are made to move, not to stagnate. Spiritually, we need to live and move and find our very beings in God, breathe Him in, meditate on His words, be constantly renewed. I won't go so far as to calling it spiritual deodorant, but you see what I'm saying, right?

I also want to suggest that soul-stank is even stankier than body stank. I want to let the trials I'm facing break me, but in a good way, in a kind of alabaster jar way. I want the brokenness to cause me to emit the fragrance of Christ. Sadly, this has not been the case recently. I've been broken alright, but the smell has been less than lovely. And everyone who gets close enough to me has gotten a whiff.

I wrote a few days ago about cuss words, about how I believe there is a direct correlation between what is in our hearts and what comes out of our mouths. I'm accounting my potty mouth to my soul-stankiness.

And the only real cure is getting clean, not just once, but over and over, as often as needed. Christians refer to this process as repentance and sometimes self-examination. It's not fun, but it is necessary.

So tonight, I thanked God for the clean, hot water for my body, and also the washing of the Word. They both make me a much more pleasant person to be around.

Love,
Amy

2 comments:

  1. I like that thought a lot. I never thought about "soul stank" before, but I agree that if we don't exercise our faith lives, they can get a bit stagnant. For me, self-reflection is great, and so is guided reflection. Your profile says you're not big on religion, but are spiritual, so perhaps you might want to consider a spiritual retreat? It will help you to shed a lot of that weight on your spirit that is creating that "soul stankiness" and you'll feel so much better afterwards :)

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    1. Yes. :) I would love to come up with some kind of creative idea to make that happen.. I do have nine kids, so getting away isn't easy, and I do have chronic illness, so some of the conference/retreats I have been to in the past didn't allow me enough time/rest and rather sort of wore me out... so I'd need to come up with something a little different. Thanks for the suggestion. If you have any ideas, I'm all ears. :) xo

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