baby's breath

Time and time again i've pondered what a baby’s breath smells like the moment it makes the journey out of a mother’s womb. It has yet to be tainted by anything of the world. Nothing yet has touched its lips or its taste buds. No matter if the smell is pleasant or potent, baby’s breath: one of the purest things in this world, for it has yet to be touched by any outside force. I am no biology major so I do not know if my scientific calculations are correct. Maybe there is some kind of process that infects the breath of the baby, but the thought of that first breath piercing the polluted air, it stirs something at the purest of my being. It makes me feel fresh, alive. A sweet aroma fills my nostrils, a fragrance i've never smelt before. Wonder.

I wonder what my first breath in Christ smelt like. My first breath after being resurrected from the dead. He breathed over my dead bones. My chest lifted. ALIVE. My first pleasing aroma to My King. Was it completely pure? That first breath, coming from Him, must have been. But as time has gone on, as I’ve tried to find life in pseudo oxygen, are tidbits now tainted, atoms abused by the world?

Today, I have a virus in my breath carrying around a virus seeking to latch onto others and destruct the body, the flu pandemic pounces producing pain, sometimes even complications that kill. 

It makes me wonder what aroma I am putting off on a daily basis. If 2 Corinthians 2:15 is true (and it is) “for we are to God the aroma of Christ among those who are being saved and those who are perishing,” are people smelling the sweet, pure, life bringing aroma of Christ when they take a whiff of me? Is my aroma a fragrance that draws them to Jesus? Or does what flows through their nostrils distort the beauty of Christ, does it stink wretchedly rotten, infecting them like the flu, causing them to cringe and push them away from the Life Giver.

Just as we adorn ourselves with the perfume and cologne each morning, we must bathe in Christ’s blood at the dawn of day (or simply just remember that the flow is already waterfalling over us), for this aroma, this fragrance is the richest and purest. Each word you say, each move you make, each action you take will be saturated in His scent. All other odors will fade because the blood of Christ is most potent of all. Although it may not negate every smell, it transcends them all. For your life is but giving Christ back His breath He has breathed in you.

“But thanks be to God, who always leads us in triumphal procession in Christ and through us spreads everywhere the fragrance of the knowledge of Him” (2 Corinthians 2:14).

Breathe your baby breath, pure Christ.