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I awoke this morning to a cloudy day. Our So. Cal. town had finally gotten some much needed rain and while I was glad for it, the gloomy mood it set was anything but bright. Pondering what to have for breakfast and needing a lift before the darkness could settle in led to a favorite first from my early childhood—peanut butter on toast. “Why, I wondered do tastes and smells linger in our memories and sometimes comfort us?”

Having this yummy treat meant generously spreading a lightly toasted piece of bread with peanut butter, preferably chunky, folding it in half and dipping it into a hot cup of sweetened and creamed coffee. It was a breakfast I’d learned the morning of my very first sleepover with my first girlfriend, JoAnne Freeman. I was only 3 or 4 years old, living in Georgia, and it was my first taste of coffee, (though heavily blended with milk and sugar) and my first taste of “chunky” peanut butter. Now, to this day, it has been my go-to breakfast for a quick pick me up and it always makes me think of my first friend—JoAnne, though I’ve long forgotten many other friends along life’s way. 

Studies I’ve read reveal that the part of the brain that stores memories is in very close proximity to the portion of our brain that recognizes taste and smell. That’s why losing your sense of smell and taste is one symptom that often occurs alongside memory loss as an early sign of dementia. But, aside from the physical reasons for those associations, I believe that our creator designed our brain that way for our comfort and help in time of trouble or sorrow. The taste and smell of good food that triggers early memories also takes us back to those good times and in turn, that encourages our heart. Maybe that’s why I still remember my first friend’s name and think about her every time I have a toasted peanut butter sandwich.  

The good Lord often used food and drink to help us remember events, especially important firsts of His integral relationship with us. Just take a quick look at stories like the Exodus when God provided Manna and quail to feed the hungry Israelites on their journey away from slavery in Egypt. Or the time right before Jesus was arrested and crucified when he used the Passover wine and bread as an iconic symbol to remind us of His sweet sacrifice. It was a moment in history, marked in our memories by food and drink, that tied the Old Covenant of the Jewish people to the New Covenant for all people—the past to the future. It was a comforting reminder of God’s love that would be stirred up over, and over again, through taste and smell as an evidential testimony that brings us comfort and affirmation of His love. He knew it was a powerful means of making a memory stick with us for thousands of generations— and it wasn’t even sticky peanut butter that did it. 

And speaking of firsts, I hope you got a chance to watch my first Zoom interview (posted right before this). Do you have a favorite holiday beverage or food memory? Hmmm, maybe when you watch my interview, you should have a cup of your favorite beverage as you watch. Then let me know if something in it sticks with you. 

Have you ever had a weird disappearance of something that finally re-appears somewhere else?

A recent tweet by the popular author and speaker Beth Moore, reminded me of one of those times. She was talking about a time when she got dressed in the dark, early before daylight, and later realized she had someone else’s pants on. It was reminiscent of something that happened to me about 40 years ago. A pair of my slacks had been missing for several weeks. I’d tried several times to locate them in my closet to no avail. Then one day, while hanging some newly laundered clothes, I discovered my missing slacks hanging in my husband’s closet. “There you are!” I exclaimed, holding them up with surprised delight as my little daughter stood nearby.   

About a week later while talking to a friend regarding the latest trends in clothing, my daughter happily exclaimed to my friend: “Sometimes my daddy wears my mommy’s pants.” Laughing with hearty embarrassment, I realized that my little girl had assumed my husband was wearing my pants simply because they were hanging in his closet. 

Naturally it’s easy to excuse a small child for incorrect assumptions, but should we be as quick to dismiss our own errant misconceptions as we sort through all the trials of life or the information and misinformation that bombards us daily?

More importantly, when it comes to wisdom and truth, who wears the pants in your family? Who has the best perspective on the truth in this upside-down culture of today? To start with, I learned early on in my marriage, to let the Good Lord (and my husband, Larry) wear the pants of wisdom in our family. We’ve both learned to let God give us His grand perspective on both the big things and everyday decisions. 

Recently while on vacation, the beautiful floor-to-ceiling windows where we stayed provided a view of a peaceful marina, allowing us to enjoy a unique and grand perspective. This peaceful and expansive view of both the harbor and the ocean just beyond it, came after a tumultuous year of Covid 19 restrictions, trials and medical issues for both my husband and I. So, we were ready for some respite. This blessing of beautiful rest and a gorgeous view allowed us to be still and know that God loves us. It displayed how generously He often pours out His blessings on us—blessings that are well beyond what we can imagine or deserve. 

We continued to marvel at the beautiful view and how awesome our great God is. Even more, we were reminded that only God has the bigger picture of what this world is coming to and therefore we must continue to seek His wisdom and leading in everything. I also considered how making assumptions or judgements about issues in our world, based on the limited view we hear or see on TV or social media, can be deceptive. It’s easy to misconstrue truth on those limited views. Sometimes it’s what is left out of view that matters most. We all need to get a broader perspective by looking at other news networks, or should I say other “closets” of information, rather than the same ones you continue to look at hoping to find the pants to wear for that day.

Mostly, we need to go to God’s Word, and a prayer closet, to put on the wise pants of God’s leading and His perspective to guide us in life choices and moral decisions.

Have you ever had something happen that gave you a new perspective on things? Leave a comment and tell me about it!

My iPhone lit up with a call from a friend who I’d recently re-connected with. I listened as she bubbled over with excitement and a proposal for me. Somehow it seemed to relate to something my mind had been ruminating on for a few weeks.

Recently I’d heard someone say “you can’t erase crayon.” Since then, and much like the medium itself, a thought I had wouldn’t erase from my mind. I kept thinking about how it was a good metaphor for things that get embedded into our hearts—good things and not so good things, colorful things and dark terrible things that never seem to go away. Especially the things that can be colored onto a young child’s heart. As an artist, of course, I also thought about throwing a few strokes of crayon onto a painting.

Knowing something about the properties of crayon, I knew it would have to be placed on the canvas early in the process to work. I also knew that after it was on the canvas (or paper), any other medium like oil paint, pastel or watercolor would be repelled by its waxiness. Then I thought about how life is so like that at times. We may have some new colorful and joyful thing currently happening in our life, but the waxy injuries of some experiences stubbornly resist going away—refuse to be covered up or erased. No, they continue to bleed through even the brightest spots.

Many people struggle for years from emotional and physical pain inflicted when they were very young. Some of the pain continues to plague their hearts and lives, resisting to fully embrace the good when it does come their way. Thankfully my life has mostly been beautiful and blessed, so, why was I still thinking about this paradox three weeks later? Why was a gal like me, (one with a relatively easy life compared to so many), still thinking about not being able to erase crayon? More importantly, was God placing it in my heart for His good purposes?  I wondered.

Then that call came in. She said I’d come to her mind as someone who might be interested in teaching an art class to some struggling young women at a transitional home. Little did she know, I’d been seeking God’s leading to find a ministry where I could use my maturity as a Christian woman as well as my talents, to minister to young women. I also thought about how painting takes me to a different emotional place of peace and beauty.

Bingo! There it was—the metaphor. I was being given the opportunity to teach art to women who had lots of waxy, hurtful experiences that were hard to erase from their life. Those painful strokes on the canvas of their hearts had led them into tough trials and struggles they were still dealing with.

God was leading me to a new way of painting beauty into the life of others. He was going to let me help these dear ladies find a beautiful way to erase crayon. And I pray that this article has brought beautiful color to your day and helped erase your own waxy memories. Please let me know, through your comments on this page, if this spoke to your heart in an affirming, healing, or painful way, that I might pray for you.

Iris Carignan

Did ya ever have a moment of curious inspiration and wonder—wonder that asks if it was your imagination, or if there’s a logical explanation for what happened? Well, just yesterday morning I had one of those. I was out on my patio spending some time in prayer, when it happened. A sweet fragrance suddenly wafted by. Funny, it wasn’t there when I first came out. I sat relishing the intoxicating perfumed air, inhaling as much as I could of the aroma similar to gardenias or jasmine. But, curiously, I noted, there aren’t any fragrant flowers currently blooming in our back yard at all, nor many in the front. And I wasn’t aware of any like that in nearby properties. 

So, how was it, I could smell that sweet fragrance? Could it be God was sending me a beautiful message of hope and courage? I’d been feeling weighed down lately after a barrage of troubles had continued to batter my husband and I for several months. It seemed that every time we’d get past one, another would come our way. My husband had suffered the most with everything including two different medical events that took him to the emergency hospital. By themselves, most of the trials weren’t earth shaking and our faith continued to get us through, but with wave after wave we barely had a chance to catch our breath between each one.  

So, I wondered, does God ever make Himself known in that way? I don’t know. But shortly after my unique aromatic experience, a distant memory drifted in too. I remembered an amazing woman I’d met thirty or forty years ago, named Bilquis Sheikh. She had spoken at our church telling her miraculous story of an encounter with God and how it led her out of her Muslim beliefs and into Christianity. In one part of her book, “I Dared to Call Him Father,” I recalled Madame Bilquis telling of a moment when an inexplicable sweet fragrance surrounded her. That sign, along with others, led her to a great change of faith. 

Ironically, the very fact that I remembered Madame Bilquis Sheikh’s name—and how to spell it, after all these years, was, in itself, a miracle for me—in my senior years I’m lucky to remember my own name sometimes. Yet, I do know that smell and memory are very attached to one another. Perhaps that’s why the story of Mary Magdalene washing the feet of Jesus with the  Oil of Spikenard to prepare Him for burial, also came to mind. In John 12:1-7 the account mentions the fragrance and how it “filled the room.” But the account that stands out most for me is the one in Matthew 26:13 that says “Assuredly, I say to you, wherever this gospel is preached in the whole world, what this woman has done will be told as a memorial to her.” I.O.W. people would remember it, like, forever. 

Whether or not it was a miraculous manifestation of my Lord, or He caused the fragrance to catch a breeze and drift my way, or it just happened to find its way to me from afar, it was just what I needed that morning. And as I sat soaking it all in, a poem came to me, so I’d like to share it as my Easter gift to all of you.

A SWEET FRAGRANCE

You come to me in sweet fragrance, carried on a breeze, 

blowing softly from afar, you enter inside with ease.

Into the deep places within,

that store my pain and sin.

Infusing sweet perfume,

and a healing balm of love.

Like a candle in a room and a sweet fragrance from above. 

Springtime flowers fresh in bloom,

carry your message 

Resurrected from a tomb,

Bursting through the soil 

That held them down,

They too, raise up 

With new life found.  

Don’t know about you, but with all the voices in our world that are clamoring for our attention these days, I’m finding it harder and harder to find my way through the din of noise. Even the joy of singing in my church choir was getting drowned out by all the Covid 19 restriction noise——”Wear a mask, keep your distance and only sing virtually, blared in my head above the beauty of the music and experience for me. So, when a friend asked if I’d seen the “peaceful” goats grazing near her home, I took pause. “Yes” I said, “and they are a beautiful sight to see.” Unfortunately, it had been on the way to the emergency hospital with my ailing husband, so of course we hadn’t been able to enjoy the sight.

Later that week, however, while pondering my friend’s observance, memories came to mind of my own experiences with goats and sheep. Many years back, we lived near a large patch of empty land. Often times sheep would graze there and we were able to observe them from across the street. Then, a few years after moving to a new house, an artist friend invited me to go with her to photograph some sheep in a nearby town. She’d gotten permission from the shepherd for us to walk among the sheep at lambing time as they grazed on the hillsides. My friend was doing research on a painting project of Jesus as the Good Shepherd and she needed some good photo references of lambs. As it turned out, I also gained some eye-opening, or should I say ear-opening information that day too.

Walking close beside the sheep brought a new revelation as I heard their bleating calls. It struck me that each sheep had a different voice much the same as people do. Some sheep had higher pitched voices (like sopranos) and others had low, or alto/base voices. And when one of the adult sheep, a mama sheep no doubt, started bleating over and over, her little lamb recognized its mother’s voice and went running up the hill to have lunch (nurse). That is when it truly sunk-in as to what Jesus was talking about when he said: “My sheep hear My voice and I know them, and they follow me,” (John 10:27). I realized, then, that sheep do recognize different voices, because they too have unique voices.

So, as I reflect back on that experience and apply its principal today, it seems the best thing I can do is keep my ears tuned to my Shepherd’s voice (Jesus) and not let the clamoring noise of many other voices gain my attention. Not let those voices “kill, steal and destroy” my joy.

Iris Carignan