The house smells soooo good!
Tonight, I was prepping the curry mix for my Spicy Beef Curry
which I will be cooking on Tuesday. So I gathered all the spices I needed to
make the curry mix. This is by far my ultimate favorite type of curry:
Roasted curry. To assemble it, I have to roast each type of
ingredient, cool them down, and
grind them together to powder size. There are about 12-13 different ingredients just to make the curry powder. But as I roasted each one of
them, Mama Mia! The fragrance of each individual spice was so different, yet each was so wonderful, so aromatic and so relaxing!
It got me thinking... what kind of aroma do I release when I am "toasted?"
As individuals, we each have our own aroma. Some are stronger than
the others the moment they hit the hot pan, and some are seemingly
fragrance-less at first until they start to brown, then the aroma comes through. Roasting these individual
spices reminded me that in order for my aroma to come through, I have to first
hit the hot pan. OUCH! Sure, I can be fragrant without trials and without getting out of my comfort zone. But
in order to release my full potential, I have to hit the "hot pan"
from time to time.
And once the spices hit the hot pan, guess what? The aroma lingers
for a while. My dress, the curtains, even the second floor of our home smelled
of roasted spices for a while. The aroma sticks! The fragrance filled every corner of our house. Compare that to when a spice just sits in its jar, covered and useless. It
doesn't affect anyone. It doesn't impact anyone. It doesn't reach out to
anyone. But when I look back at my life, every time I have to hit the hot pan,
chances are, someone else will hit the same hot pan later. I then become kinder to
them, gentler to them, more caring to them. Because we have been to the same hot pan so I know what they are going through.
But what's even more amazing is though each ingredient has its own
aroma, when put together in a pot to make a curry, we don't smell just turmeric
or fenugreek seeds or cardamom. What do we smell? Curry! Just curry! As a
whole, these spices create a completely different, and pleasing, aroma!
Amazing! The rice is virtually fragrance-less but when toasted, it adds a depth to flavor of the dish and it actually holds the curry together. The cardamom and
cloves, on the other hand, seem to be very potent even with just a tiny amount
and are added only in little measure. But with each spoonful of curry, they
blend in nicely and don’t overpower the other spices.
This curry mix reminded me of Ephesians 4.
“As a prisoner for
the Lord, then, I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have
received. 2 Be completely humble
and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love. 3 Make every effort to keep the unity of
the Spirit through the bond of peace. 4 There is one body and
one Spirit, just as you were called to one hope when you were called; 5 one Lord, one
faith, one baptism; 6 one God and Father of all, who is
over all and through all and in all…. 11 So Christ himself
gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the
pastors and teachers, 12 to equip his people
for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up13 until
we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of Godand
become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.”
Some of us have been gifted to preach or sing the heavens down. Some of us can’t even utter a word in front of other people, but
can reach out to individuals on a one-on-one basis in a powerful way. Some of us can dig
through the Bible theologically, hermeneutically, exegetically. Some
seem to be “fragrant-less and faceless” yet gracefully hold the group together
with their powerful prayers, care for and love on others.
It is easy to just hide inside my home, shut the blinds and
curtains, and go on with my life. Oh I can clean the house all day long, cook my heart out, accomplish so many chores, plan the next country to hit and live contently with
my family. I can just be one of those spices tucked inside a jar, tightly
sealed away and locked up in a cabinet. Not affecting anyone. Not impacting
anyone. Not reaching anyone. Of course I avoid the drama everyone has. For all I know, I
have enough of my own. But I also realize that I have been brought to
this place to impact someone. To affect someone. To reach someone. And I cannot
do that without stepping out of my comfort zone and getting "toasted" in that hot pan. After all, loving others the way Christ loved is inconvenient, painful and sacrificial. We always say “stay away from negative people, from dramatic
people, from people that suck away your energy.” But if we do, who else
will reach out to them? Who else will show them Jesus? Where else can
they go? Imagine if Jesus had that mantra in His life? Stay away from negative
people... from dramatic people… from people that suck away your energy. Ha!
That would be virtually the entire human race. At some point, we all have become
negative. We all have become dramatic. We all have sucked someone else’s
energy. So we need to be a little bit more graceful, a little bit more
kind and a little bit more caring.
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