The Smell of Devotion

A few days ago I was working in my office and listening to a sermon online at the same time. I've been listening to Mark Driscoll a lot lately. He's great! Check him out at www.marshillchurch.org. Anyway, he referred to some verse that grabbed my attention and I wanted to look it up. I looked around my desk for one of my Bibles and the only one there was a Bible I never read. It just sits there because the pages are brittle and I don't want to damage it. It's my Grandpa Myers' bible and my Dad gave it to me at my ordination service. I was close to my Grandpa so it means a lot to me. He was a pastor as well.

Anyway, since it was close, I grabbed it and looked up the verse. The print is pretty small so I lowered my head closer to the pages. As I did, this sensation overwhelmed me and I immediately started crying. It wasn't because of anything I saw or any memories - it was a smell. I had never noticed it before, but this Bible still smelled like my Grandpa Myers! It didn't smell like an old book or like dusty pages, but when I put my head in it, I smelled my Grandpa. Kind of a sweet smell like Rolaids and some sort of tonic.

Grandpa Myers died about 15 years ago. As I was sitting there crying and thinking of him, this is the question that hit me: How much do you have to read a book for it to still smell like you 15 years after you're dead? At that moment, I was humbled, convicted, and grateful all at once.