Triple C News - Oct. 28
Hey, everyone!
Hope you’re having a praise-filled, thankful day of fall sunny-ness! And to prime your heart for autumn awesomeness, maybe you could start your day with a pumpkin spice mocha, light a pumpkin spice candle and fill your heart with a pumpkin spice attitude of joy!
“Wait. What’s pumpkin spice joy?”
Oh. Actually I don’t think there is such a thing.
But it’s about the only thing that doesn’t have a pumpkin spice version!
This season of the year is the time for pumpkin spice everything!
Besides the Starbucks pumpkin spice latte, did you know there are pumpkin spice Oreos? And pumpkin spice beer…pumpkin spice lip balm…pumpkin spice cream cheese…pumpkin spice nut butter…pumpkin spice raman noodles…pumpkin spice spam(gross!)…pumpkin spice Twinkies…pumpkin spice popcorn…
even pumpkin spice dog treats!
Y’know this whole pumpkin spice craze has gotten so big that on my Mac there’s an app that I put on it that when I use Pages (like I am right now) when I type…
PUMPKIN SPICE
if you click on it and put your nose close to the screen, you can actually smell a very faint smell of pumpkin spice! It’s so cool!
In fact, you could actually try doing it! Just click on where I typed “pumpkin spice” in capitals and put your nose close to the screen. Did you smell it?
It may take a couple of tries.
Anything?
(Actually, it won’t really! I was just kidding!)
But it won’t be long before they have that app, I bet!
And when it happens, remember! I thought of it first!
I wonder why something like pumpkin spice flavor snuggles in there and grabs such a place in everyone’s favorite fall…feelings?
It’s really only been around since 2003.
Bruce Clark, professor of marketing at Northwestern says that it has to do with nostalgia that folks have about pumpkins and carving them and memories…
And someone just put a smell to it! It smells like fall!
It smells like home…
It smells like the fam around the fireplace…
It smells like…”’Night, John Boy”…”’Night, Ma…”
It smells like…sniff…sniff… (I better stop)
The only thing pumpkin spice doesn’t smell like is…pumpkins! They don’t really smell like anything! But someone associated a smell with something that doesn’t normally smell that way and it unexpectedly captures your heart.
There’s a place in Ephesians 4 where Paul (who wasn’t always like this!) told us that we who love Jesus ought always to be “kind and helpful”…”tender-hearted and compassionate”…”being gracious and generous in our giving and forgiving everyone”
Then he wrote “…be like God. Walk in love…”
As you walk…everywhere you go…love and kindness.
Love and kindness in your words…
love and kindness with your friends…l
ove and kindness for all you meet…
love and kindness in your thoughts…
love and kindness in your posts…
love and kindness in your silent prayers…
And in the next verse he adds an astounding thought…
When you do, it will smell like Jesus. (Ephesians chapter 5, verse 2)
When you get your pumpkin spice latte and you hold it tight and smell it, all the sudden you may not know why but you’re thinking of falling leaves, crackling fires and cozy sweaters.
And when you’re kind and helpful…
when you have a tender heart…
when you’re gracious and generous in your giving and forgiving…
all of the sudden…
and they may not even know why…
or how…
or what it even means…
but in ways they might not even understand…
they’re thinking of…
Him.