I'm a Perfume-Aholic....My Name is "Self"

I received this from an online friend today. It is her testimony of how God is working in her life. It was so good that I asked if I could post it on my blog. This is from "Brightfaith"............

I’m a Perfume-Aholic…..My Name is ‘Self’

It’s ok if you laugh while you read this (Kathy). The absurdity of my experience may move you to laughter, or it may move you to tears. I have experienced laughter and tears, joy and sorrow over what I am about to share with you. And I must tell you that this is one of the strangest experiences I have had to date….it is strange and amazing.

On May 19^th, 2008 I will have been a born again Christian for 21 years. I remember clearly the day that I gave my heart and life to Jesus, to do with, to build with, to use as He pleases. Of course I was just certain that He would give to me the gift of ‘healing’. How I longed to have that miraculous gift. To think that He would use my hands to bring health and wellness to the suffering, the sick or the dying would fill my heart with joy. I pleaded with Him to anoint me thusly, confident that He would not refuse such a sincere request. But, He did. Well, not entirely. He did use me once in a miraculous way to help save a life. And once He used me to help heal a cat of mine that I was sure would die, but both of those stories are for another time. The Lord in His wisdom decided that I would serve Him better if I would be a ‘prayer warrior’ and that I would be of greater use to Him if I could learn simple obedience.

According to Webster’s Seventh New Collegiate Dictionary, obedient means: submissive to the restraint or command of authority. As you may be guessing, especially if you have known me for any substantial length of time, we’re already on dangerous ground. If my grandmother were still alive she would be able to pass an afternoon or 2 with you telling you stories (all true) of how headstrong and willful I could be. Thankfully maturity has mellowed me quite a bit though, and I am not as difficult to rein in as I once was. In fact I have learned that the ‘rules’ are in fact my friends. Rules are a necessary, though often times, unpleasant part of life. Without rules and/or laws, where would we be as a society? What side of the road would we drive on or would we even drive on the road? We’d just show up at work whenever we wanted to, wearing whatever we felt like. When would the stores be open? Without rules we wouldn’t need the police and we could just do as we please, steal this thing or shoot that person over there. Yes, rules and laws are mostly good and necessary. They are set in place to protect us and bring order to our lives. Not unlike the Ten Commandments, although I do think God might have worded them in a more positive fashion…..instead of ‘Thou Shalt Not’s’ , we could have the ‘Thou Shalt’s’….We would have ‘Thou shalt tell the truth’ and ‘Thou shalt be faithful to thy spouse’….but that is not the purpose of my writing to you now.

So there I was, a brand new Christian, eager to serve the Lord in a miraculous way, and all He wanted from me was to pray fervently for others and be obedient. I will confess that I thought this a simple and disappointing assignment. As you might well be imagining I am still working on this assignment 21 years later. Some days I do better than others, and some times I am still slow to learn the lesson at hand.

Let me ask you a question. How much are you willing to give up to be of use to the Lord? If you’re anything like me, you didn’t hesitate in your answer, which was most likely, ‘Whatever He wants’. Really? Are you sure? Maybe you’d like to take a minute or two and really think about it. No? Would you let a homeless person come into your home and use your spare bedroom? How much of your savings would you give away to a family in need? What if you knew of someone that could use one of your kidneys? If you were pregnant with your fourth or fifth child, would you give that baby away to a young couple that desperately wanted a child and couldn’t have one? Would you spend your vacation in a Third World country tending to the sick and dying? Tough questions. No easy answers. I have found that God hasn’t asked me to make those difficult decisions. His requests of me are more along the lines of saying no to ‘self’ and saying yes to ‘Him’.

Recently I was blessed with a position in ER Admitting at our local hospital. Not only does my new job come with better pay, and better benefits, it offers me a chance to serve the Lord in ways that on a daily basis really can make a difference in someone’s life. I can help our patient’s to receive timely emergency care, and offer support and comfort to frightened family members, or the patient. I have the opportunity to really be the hands of Christ, in small but not insignificant ways. Awesome.

And then ‘self’ reared its ugly, selfish head, threatening to rob me of this great opportunity, and in a way so absurd that I am embarrassed to share it with you. My dad tells me that confession is good for the soul, and so the story will be told.

I was told in orientation that we are not to wear perfume or body lotions with strong scents. Certainly this did not pertain to ME, I mean I only work in Admitting. So I began my new job with zest and enthusiasm. I dressed each day with care, arrived early for my shift, drenched in my favorite Estee Lauder perfume, Spellbound. My supervisor, after not too many days told me I couldn’t wear my perfume. “But you always smell lovely” I said to her. She says “It’s body lotion”. Being who I am I set out immediately to locate Spellbound body lotion. Nope. None. They aren’t making it anymore I hear from Dillard’s and Macy’s. And the nice Estee Lauder sales lady shares with me the newest scent, ‘Bronze Goddess’, which smells marvelous and I make a purchase. Of course, being the recovering alcoholic that I am, I want 2. She has only 1. So, off to Macy’s I go to get another one. Then I am told that I cannot wear this one either. Well, being the self-ish person that I am, I decide to spray my lightweight coat with my heavy weight perfume, that way I can at least smell good sometimes. And disaster…it triggers an asthma attack in a co-worker! My supervisor tells me to go get my jacket. She doesn’t yell at me, or give me nasty looks. You’d think that would’ve done the trick for me, but nooooo……a couple of days later, after all the day people leave, I decide that I haven’t tried wearing Estee Lauder’s ‘Intuition’…..that, in my mind, is the solution….a different scent. In my make-up bag I have a little bottle of the Intuition, and I decide that I will just use a little, teeny tiny dab behind each ear…..but I don’t want to get it on my hands, because it will end up on the computer keyboard and the phone, so I carefully hold the bottle up by my earlobe and I gently tip it, and it spills down my neck!! Do I have the good sense to go immediately and try to wash it off? Nooooooo…….I don’t even think that it will be a problem. But it was of course, and this time for a lady who had brought her elderly mother to the ER. I grab alcohol wipes (we have big ones in the ER) and start scrubbing. No good. Then I remember I have clothes in the back of my car for the Goodwill. I run out and change my top. Still no good. So I go in and ask the person training me if I should just go home, all the while sitting there scrubbing away with the alcohol wipes and crying. He says “Maybe you’d better Susan, and you’re all red from those wipes, you can’t keep doing that”. “I don’t care, I don’t want to hurt anyone and I don’t want to get fired” is my response. So off I go with tears in my eyes and an alcohol wipe in my hand.

On the ride home I am sick to my stomach, filled with a sense of dread and fear. And then I hear the Lord ask me…..”Will you give up your perfume so that I can use you?” “Of course I will Lord” but my fear remains and I am certain that my new job is lost.

When I got home I called my best friend and told her all of this absurd experience. I have NEVER in my life had so much trouble over perfume. All my years as a Dental Assistant I not once had anything like this happen. It was just too strange for me to get my mind around it. She and I talked and she prayed.

After our conversation ended my mind still tried to make sense of it all. I talked to the Lord …..and I listened. He spoke. He told me that the hospital was where people are born…..very often where they come to die…..they come there to fight for their lives……..they come there when they have a need and they don’t know where else to go for help…..they come there to for all kinds of reasons. I suddenly saw the hospital as holy ground. A sacred place. Jesus asked me again, “Will you give up your perfume so that I can use you Susan?” Of course my answer was “Yes Lord, yes”.

I will ask you again, how much are you willing to give up to be of use to the Lord? Would you give up your perfume? Will you give up your high heels? Chocolate? Working 14 hours a day? Shopping? Golf? Will you give up something that really is part of your ‘self’, something that really defines you to you? Will you say no to ‘self’ and yes to the Lord?

You may think that giving up my perfume would be a snap…..I did. Now as I am getting ready to go to work, at the hospital, I find myself reaching for my Spellbound out of ritual….it is something that is part of my daily preparation. I stop. It is my prayer that God will anoint me with His Heavenly scent….the scent of forgiveness, hope, grace, mercy, and most of all love. I want to walk so closely with the Lord that when I draw near to a patient or one of their family members, they will smell Jesus on me.

My friend Kathy and I laugh at this whole thing, how the Lord will ask us to be obedient in ways that we would never think mattered. I am hoping He doesn’t ask me to give up bleaching my hair, or tweezing out the hairs that regularily appear on my chin (much to my dismay)…..I am hoping He will continue to allow me to wear eyeliner and lipstick…..and I am hoping that if He does ask me to give up those things that I will be able to lay them down too.

Twenty-one years into my walk with the Lord I am still working on obedience, apparently no small task for someone as ‘self-ish’ as I am. And I am still learning that He can only use those that are obedient. Like I said in the beginning of this letter, some days I do better than others. This entire experience of giving up my perfume is really an opportunity to go to the next level spiritually. I don’t know what that will be, but I am excited to see what the Lord will do.

I am reminded of a Janis Joplin song, ‘Take Another Little Piece of My Heart’.Here is my heart Jesus…..take it all, make it Your own…. one piece at a time.

P.S.

Today I returned the second bottle of ‘Bronze Goddess’ body lotion, I don’t need it. One bottle is going to last a long time since I am only wearing perfume on the weekends now!