by Katie Lucy
Our wedding day was amazing. It was all I dreamt it would be and more. The flowers were fragrant and beautifully blended. The colors of light pink, white, and deep purple lit up the sanctuary. My dress sparkled in the light coming through the stained glass windows of the church. I felt like a princess from head to toe— and yet, I smelled like a man.
My fiancé’s (at the time) friend, Melvin, who is known for his strong fragrance, embraced me quickly on the way to take to his seat before the ceremony began. That quick embrace left me wreaking of man’s cologne. I only had minutes before I walked down the aisle to marry my beloved, so a quick respray of my perfume was my only viable option. Thankfully, it worked! Melvin’s smell faded by the time I reached my husband-to-be at the end of the aisle.
After the excitement of the wedding dissipated, I remember speaking to the Lord about it, “I’m glad the smell of Melvin’s cologne wore off–I didn’t want to smell like a man when I married my beloved.” In my spirit, I felt the Lord smiling at me. I sensed the Lord using this an opportunity to teach me. This is what I believe the Lord was saying:
“My children have to be careful about what they embrace in their lives because they will smell like whatever they embrace: righteous or unrighteous.”
The Lord wasn’t telling me that hugging Melvin was unrighteous. Instead, He was using this story as an illustration. “Wow, ” I thought, “Thank You, Lord.”
I love being intimate and relational with Him in ways that I would another person. The Lord even interacts with me on topics that wouldn’t seem to matter to the Lord of all (but, it does matter to Him.) I love that about the Lord. In trials and challenges, I think He is even more eager to speak and be intimate with us. He is our Father and wants to parent us. Each morning when I wake, before opening my eyes, I ask Him, “Poppa, what do You say?” (What’s on Your heart for today?)
Just like everyone, I face trials and difficulties– some more rigorous than others.
One morning, upon waking, I was speaking with the Lord about some of the trials through which I was walking. This one particular day, I was so weary of dealing with it–even before I got up. I had spent years praying and trying to figure out how to fight and get “delivered” from this situation/pain in my life. Through the years, I would see a little improvement here and there. At this time, however, the circumstances seemed to be getting worse. I had a huge gaping hole of pain in my soul. Some days, it was challenging to navigate the pain and to feel connected to the Lord, even though I know He never leaves us. So, this particular morning, I asked the Lord, “What are You saying today, Poppa?” I immediately saw Psalms 45:8; when I got out of bed, I reached for the Bible:
“All your robes are fragrant with myrrh and aloes and cassia; from palaces adorned with ivory the music of the strings makes you glad.” NIV
“Aw, that’s nice Lord, I don’t know how that relates to the agony I feel and have been going through….(but thank you for trying to make me feel better). You’re so sweet.”
I proceeded to get up and went throughout my day with my usual work and worshiping, praying and digging into the Word. However, this Psalm remained in the back of my mind.
Over the next week, He took me on a journey that I will never forget. For the next several days, I saw white robes everywhere: on tv, in people’s houses, in the mall, even dreamt about them. Also, I saw anointing oil and the words “cassia” and “aloes” multiple times a day. The songs, “As the Deer” and “Hungry” seemed to be playing non-stop in my head and my heart. I would even wake up in the middle of the night and hear in my spirit:
“Hungry I come to You for I know You satisfy, so I wait for You… I’m falling on my knees….offering ALL of me” or, “You alone are my heart’s desire and I long to worship thee.”
As a worshiper, singing songs in my head and heart is not unusual, but the verses and same songs over and over is what clued me in that the Lord was up to something. For the next week, I began worshiping more and more to these songs, playing them on repeat for hours. The lyrics became the meditations of my heart and the cry of my soul. While my circumstances stayed the same and at times got worse, I just continued. I HAD to. It was like I couldn’t get enough.
As I pressed into the Lord continually in this manner, I stopped trying to figure out WHY. I started to hunger more and more after Him and desired to be satisfied by HIM…my Redeemer…my Savior, I began to feel I was clinging and holding on to His robe, and it was so fragrant. Suddenly, I realized my hug got just a little deeper and a little longer.
The pictures I began to see were no longer just the words “aloe” or “cassia” but of me wearing a white robe and dripping of cassia and aloe. Now, the gaping hole of pain was filled with the Lord and His scents of cassia and aloe.
He showed me that I stopped embracing the unrighteous and was embracing the Righteous: Him. I stood inside the pain and cried out for Him rather than for comfort or deliverance and He came. The Lord was all I knew in the situation—and He was enough.
The circumstances haven’t changed much, and I don’t know how I will handle this situation in the future–but it doesn’t matter. I am content to sit with Him, pressed into His fragrant robe as I wear mine and wait upon Him in a palace adorned with ivory (to me, His arms), worshiping with songs from Him, and they make me glad.
