The White Shirt


Someone has said that youth is wasted on the young. Over fifty years behind The White Shirt, I find that could not be farther from the truth. For all life's situations are remembered by sights, tastes, fragrances. To be carried over into our mature years—if we're clever enough to let it happen. I draw a deep breath to fill my proverbial lungs with the smell of leather on the white shirt I found hanging in my young husband's closet so many years ago. He was far and away serving our country and I was left behind. I clung to anything that drew me close to him. Anything that brought intimacy in his absence. That stirred my thoughts of him alone. Sights, sounds, fragrance on a white shirt. He is my joy, my wine of Lebanon. He brought me joy then. He brings me joy now.

But there is One greater still who is more fragrant than the wine of Lebanon. One who brings joy unspeakable and full of glory, about whom Hosea wrote, the scent thereof shall be as the wine (joy) of Lebanon. There is none like him. The fragrance of the Rose of Sharon, the Valley's Lily. I'll always remember The White Shirt, a symbol of love both physical and emotional, but as lovely as the memory is, it cannot touch the reality of Calvary where Love was crushed, broken, poured out, and became more fragrant than the wine of Lebanon.

Hosea 14:4-6: 9. "I will be as the dew unto Israel: he shall grow as the lily, and cast forth his roots as Lebanon. His branches shall spread, and his beauty shall be as the olive tree, and his smell as Lebanon. They that dwell under his shadow shall return; they shall revive as the corn, and grow as the vine: the scent thereof shall be as the wine of Lebanon. ...Who is wise, and he shall understand these things? Prudent and he shall know them? For the ways of the Lord are right, and the just shall walk in them..."

Comments

  1. crystal HillOctober 26, 2009 at 12:39 PM

    I did this too! When Joey went to Europe a few years ago, I made him let me have a sweatshirt that he had because it made me feel closer to him even though he was so far away!

    ReplyDelete

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