caper

Soooo, my room smells like myrrh.

And I have no idea why.

So I’m sitting at my computer looking something up and all of a sudden I’m hit with this wall of the scent of myrrh.

Let me back up a bit.

Earlier today, I went next door to the rectory of the Serbian Orthodox Church next door to talk to them about using their hall for the Bowling Tournament that we’re hosting next year. Papadiya and I got to talking, and we discussed how my mother is having surgery to remove a kidney stone tomorrow.

When Father came into the house, he gave me a bit of oil from the Myrrh Streaming Icon of the Mother of God from Hawaii and a paper duplicate of the icon to give to her, along with the assurance of his prayers.

So when I smelled it, I figured my dad was just anointing my mother in the next room. But when I walked there, I found her sitting alone on her bed rubbing unscented lotion into her hands.

I beckoned her out into the hallway in order to reassure that I wasn’t going crazy. As soon as she stepped into the hallway connecting our rooms she said, “Where is that smell coming from?”

Obviously, I had no idea, but the scent had very distinct lines of beginning and ending. We eventually called my brother and father out into the hall/my room as well to make sure we weren’t making it up.

There was this endearingly crazy moment where we were all standing in the hallway sniffing at the air, trying to figure out the source of the scent of myrrh.

I ended up smelling and touching every icon I knowingly have in my room, and found nothing out of the ordinary.

At one point I said to my father, “Well, maybe this is God’s way of telling me to clean my room.”

He looked up at the ceiling and said, “Thank you, God.”

So the smell still persists, but I’ll go to bed tonight knowing that God is near me.

And if you have any time, I’d appreciate you keeping my mother, Pani Eleanor in your prayers as she has surgery tomorrow to remove a 1 centimeter kidney stone (I really with that were a typo)