A SWEET AROMA

I was sitting in church yesterday morning ...it was hot (very hot), the girls were hanging all over me, it was crowded ...need I say more?? Then, this short thought SHOT through my head. I had to grab it, think about it, mull it over.

It said, "This heat is a sacrifice to God."

Think about that one a minute. So, I did. I began to realize that so many things in Romania are a sacrifice to God, that it actually smells sweet to Him, because they are things we live with (tolerate?) simply because of our obedience to be here.

Some of the things He reminded me about:

the relentless summer heat
the mind-numbing traffic
the expensiveness of everything
the exhaustion of this life in a foreign country
the pressing crowds everywhere
the noise at all times
the bad roads
the pressure of raising financial support each month
the million "what-ifs" for our girls
the waiting in line to find you've waited in the wrong line
the waiting for documents
the beggars at your window at each intersection
the never finding a parking space
the waiting until the last minute mentality in RO
the bureaucracy
the "almost" but "not quite" in everything

....and so on and so forth

....somehow, in an economy only God could fathom or create, those things are sweet-smelling aromas to Him!