Who Wants to be a Stink Bomb?

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Several days ago, I noticed a bad odor when I was in the kitchen. I joked about it, telling my friends that “something is rotten in the state of Denmark,” meaning my my pantry. I checked the onions and potatoes. I checked the floor, thinking a cat might have had an accident. I found stale bread, but never found the source of the smell.  

We just kept tolerating it. No one wanted to clean the pantry from top to bottom. Everyone hoped the smell would magically go away on its own.

Then a couple nights ago David had to move some stuff around in there. I heard him ask “what’s going on with the tomato paste?” I had purchased a box of 100 cans of tomato paste because they were cheaper that way and stored the box in the pantry. Many of them were swelling on the ends and several had obviously ruptured. Instead of red tomato paste though, the cans were covered in a sticky black goo and grey mold. Voila! L’odeur! Of course we had to pull the box out and clean up the mess. Afterwards, though, the smell was gone.

We are like those cans when we keep toxins bottled up inside: angry thoughts, unforgiveness, criticism and bitterness. Sometimes instead of dealing with things and asking God to forgive and heal us, we stuff it all in and slam a lid on it. Eventually we explode like a bomb, usually on someone we love who is totally innocent. Or we simmer, exuding a bad “odor” so we are like poison in the atmosphere around us.  Christians are the aroma of Christ among both the saved and the lost.  I would much rather be "aromatherapeutic" (is that a word?) than noxious.