smashing the perfume bottle

For my thirty somethingth birthday I thought I would finally choose a perfume for me - one that I love, that my husband loves, one that is ME in a bottle. It was going to be a life defining moment, to finally find that one fragrance that is the 'essence of ME'!
After an hour and a half of sniffing every perfume in the plaza, I came home stinking of perfume, with a gigantic headache and a realisation that perfume and me are not to be. My husband thought I stank too and was soon sharing my headache, thus abruptly ending my romantic fantasies of me and my perfume together forever fairytale - back to Mitchum baby powder scented roll-on (apparently so effective you could skip a day!)
I wish I did love a perfume and that it didn't seep into my veins, slowly emitting toxins into my blood and poisoning me with allergens.
One of my favourite Jesus stories happens just before he is crucified. A woman smashes a perfume bottle at his feet, bathing his feet with her tears and the expensive fragrance, drying his feet with her hair. The perfume fills the room with the aroma of extravagant love.
Apparently that perfume would have been worth a years salary. It was probably her life savings. What an extraordinary sacrificial gift. Ultimately that woman was giving away all she was worth and her future savings for just a moment's display of affection. Some in the room said it was such a waste. Really, that perfume could never be put in that bottle again to be used or sold. She gave away everything she had to show her love for one man - smashing her future hope and trust in anything other than him. What a beautiful moment to be a part of, I can imagine watching the intimacy of that moment, with the perfume surrounding me and filling every pore - how alive that woman must have felt, really she was pouring herself out.
I'm sure she didn't know how significant her gift was to him, or how it would mirror the gift that he was about to give to her. He was about to smash his own perfume bottle. His body would be whipped to within an inch of death, thorns piercing into his head and through his skull, nails through his hands and feet, ripping his limbs as his body hung on them, the weight of his body crushing his lungs until finally he breathed his last. Such a violent and inhumane death, it could almost seem a waste of a life. But as his body was broken, his perfume filled the earth - the perfume of forgiveness, grace, mercy and love - that if we let it, will wash away the brokenness, pain and emptiness in our life, and fill us with the very life and love of God.
It was a divine exchange - she gave away her savings and any hope she held in material things and she gave him her heart. He gave away the very life of God so that she could have real God life. He became poor so that she could become rich in him. He suffered pain and humiliation so that she could be healed and made whole.
It's in those moments of sacrificial love, when it feels as if we are being broken ourselves, that true love is a fragrance about us. Whether it is those sleepless nights caring for a baby, the times when you are doing everything for your kids to see them do well and to not be appreciated, the times when you really don't have time but you give someone a call to bless them or bake them a meal, the times when you wake early to pray for those in need, or give a financial gift when you don't have enough for yourself - that is when your love is a sweet aroma in your life. Its only when the perfume bottle is broken that the fragrance about you is one of extravagant love.

completely nuts

If you didn't have a chance to follow along on our Darwin blog, please click on the link and have a read.
When our feet finally hit the ground I'm hoping to write back on here again on why I'm completely nuts taking 3 little ones on a missions trip and why it was completely worth it:) lol

darwinadventure.tumblr.com