Living in Stinky Town

Not too terribly long after I was married we moved to another town because of a job change.

Let me tell you, this little girl did NOT want to move away, but move away I did.

My husband and I rode together in the U-Haul and my sister and mother followed to help us unpack.

I was scared to death. I never even liked to stay away from my parents over night, more or less live in another town. I mean, I know I was married, and I no longer lived with them, but I lived in their back yard, for crying out loud.

I did such a brave job of keeping it all together until we started up the bridge that would take us into our new hometown.

It was there, in the middle of that bridge between little girlhood and womanhood that it hit me...

The smell of the paper mill....

Much to the surprise of my husband I burst into tears and said "I don't WANT to live in this Stinky Town!!!"

But live there I did.

And do you know what happened?

After a while I could no longer smell the stench anymore. It didn't even phase me.

OK, there were some days when they must have been cooking that paper extra hard when I would get a sniff of something foul in the air, but for the most part, I didn't notice anymore.

I hadn't really thought about it at all until the other day when I was passing through another town with a paper mill and the smell slapped me in the face.

It was then I remember my first day in "Stinky Town."

God has a way of taking a stinky situation and making it sweet. It was in that stinky place that I received one of my two greatest blessing, for that is the place my sweet little girl was first laid in my arms. And the memories of her had completely wiped out the stench, until I smelled it again the other day.

So to all of you out there living in Stinky Town, take heart. The smell will fade away, and the flowers of your life will bloom, filling your senses with the fragrance of joy.

Isn't He wonderful?!?!?