In the wake of the puppy catastrophe, we quietly adopted another dog a few weeks ago. I’ll admit we were a little nervous, but I didn’t want the kids to be scared to open their hearts again. So Watson joined our family. I knew it was the right decision when my daughter said, “I feel hope again.”
Because of a miscommunication, Watson wasn’t in his crate the other night. Around 2:30 am I heard a sound outside the bedroom door and got up in time to see Watson’s accident. I cleaned it up right away, but even after everything had been sanitized, the scent lingered in the air. “All I can smell is poop!” I sniffled.
This is a middle-of-the-night lesson, so bear with me a minute. When the Lord sent manna to feed the Israelites in the desert, He instructed them to only gather what was needed for each day. “But, of course, some of them didn’t listen and kept some of it until morning. By then it was full of maggots and had a terrible smell” (Exodus 16:20). At its heart, all disobedience is sin, and it always reeks. Now if my puppy’s poop could create such a powerful stink, imagine the stench of all the disobedience in the world. It’s nauseating. Yet this is what must fill God’s nostrils each day, because every one of us is a born rebel.
In an effort to neutralize the smell, my husband lit a match. The light flared in the dark, and the scent of the struck match filled the room. Fun fact: the sulphur dioxide released when a match is lit essentially overwhelms the sense of smell, covering up the offensive odor. And here’s the lesson – as the light of the world, we’re like those matches, bringing not only light, but also relief from the stench of sin.
[God] uses us to tell others about the Lord and to spread the Good News like a sweet perfume. Our lives are a fragrance presented by Christ to God. 2 Corinthians 2:14
There’s a postscript to this story. I actually cried a few overtired tears over Watson’s accident. Our older dog had had her own upset tummy troubles in recent days and I just really didn’t want to deal with anymore out-of-place bodily functions. But when my husband lit the match, he was standing directly under the smoke detector, which I’m happy to report works very well. It was completely ridiculous, and absolutely funny. I laughed way more than I had cried.
That smoke alarm was the kindness of God. Dogs will be dogs, kids will get sick, the car will break down, whatever – stuff happens. That’s when the light is most needed. But we’re not just trying to come up with some platitudes and ignore the mess. Instead, we’re taking an honest, fully illuminated look at the mess, and holding out the hope of this promise in the midst of it: “God blesses you who weep now, for the time will come when you will laugh with joy” (Luke 6:21).