A Marinating Thought

The nose begins to twitch. The brain comes alive. The stomach begins to growl. The fingers move with motion in trying to find what the lovely aroma is all about. It reminds me of the movie Frankenstein, “it’s alive.“
     I remember waking up at my grandmother’s farm to a fresh smell of maple bacon cooking on her iron cast skillet. My grandmothers could cook the greatest prize winning pies. My Mama would fix the best lemon meringue pie, and my Granny would cook a great apple pie. Any smell would create an appetite that you could not just stop at once piece or slice. It left you craving for more. Not sure if I can equate that to a pregnant woman with her cravings to pickles and ice cream. That just sours my taste buds.
     It is interesting how smell can carry memories from being a young child into my adulthood. For me, it is similar to the smell of grilling over mesquite wood and the smoke permeates the clothes, the hair and the skin. Wonder if they can bottle up that smell like cologne? Not that I would wear it, but the smell is phenomenal.
     I enjoy cooking. The other day Tanya was sleeping and a craving of ham came over me. Sneaking into the kitchen, I began my magic touch. The secret to great food is to marinate. Meat can be tough. Marinating can help it to be tender and yet taste great.
     Like a witch and her brew, I began to pour in the orange juice, dr. pepper, molasses, brown sugar and secret spices into my marinating sauce for the ham. It takes time in putting this together. It takes time to marinating the ham in the juices. The end result was they could not stop eating. They loved my cooking. Go me!
     If anything is to be a sweet aroma, tender and provide a good taste it takes time in marinating. Life can be sweet or it can be bitter. It all depends in what you are marinating yourself in.
     Are you marinating into a life of drugs, alcohol and other addictive thoughts and behaviors that your life tastes bitter and the aroma is a stench that you’re always in disagreements with others? It does not have to be this way. There is a recipe book already made and it helps in changing lives.
     The recipe book is Christ, and he is the recipe to a successful life. The question is what happens when we marinate in Him? “Those who think they can do it on their own end up obsessed with measuring their own moral muscle but never get around to exercise it in real life. Those who trust God's action in them find that God's Spirit is in them—living and breathing God! Obsession with self in these matters is a dead end; attention to God leads us out into the open, into a spacious, free life. Focusing on the self is the opposite of focusing on God. Anyone completely absorbed in self ignores God, ends up thinking more about self than God. That person ignores who God is and what he is doing. And God isn't pleased at being ignored” (Romans 8:6, The Message).
     Marinating and meditating on Him changes life. The sweet aroma draws others around to partake in the beautiful feast of your soul. Think and marinate in these words and look at the peace you can have in your life without the other turmoil. It takes the right kind of spices to make a heart tender and sweet to others and memories to last a life time just like my grandmother's cooking!