When You Smell the Flowers

This is an excerpt from Heaven Bible Study from Jennifer Rothschild.

I’ve walked many miles in the dark, thus my eyes are drawn to the place where there is no more night, no darkness at all. Since becoming blind at age fifteen, I’ve held the arms of friends, family, and strangers to navigate the unending darkness. I’ve held tight to my faith and been held by God’s grace through every dark day. And I’ve also held a white cane.  

I have definitely walked by faith and not by sight—in a very literal sense.  

I’ll never forget how Mike, my mobility instructor, finished up my first lesson of learning to walk in the dark. I was seventeen years old when I got my first white cane, and with it I got Mike, the amazing guy who taught me how to use it. During that first lesson, he showed me how to navigate safely and helped me gain some independence. He walked me around my neighborhood, pointing out how to hold the cane, how to tap it, and how to anticipate all the rough places I would encounter. 

Sweaty from the Miami heat and probably from the stress I felt, we turned the last corner toward my home. He paused and asked, “Do you smell it?” 

I stopped and breathed in my surroundings. I did smell it. A lush bush of blooming hibiscus was right there on the corner near my home. 

“When you smell the flowers,” Mike said, “you know you’re almost home.” 

So, my friend, I ask you what Mike asked me, “Do you smell it?” Pause and breathe in your surroundings. 

It is your reminder that home, your Father’s house, is just around the corner—one breath, one heartbeat away. Even if Heaven came way too soon for someone you love or if you think (and hope) it is decades away for you, it is still our eternal home. By faith, it is our unseen reality that makes all we see here beam with real, unshakeable hope. 

On this side of eternity, we each walk by faith, not by sight. 

But there will be a day when the fragrance of those flowers is so strong that we will know, we will know we are almost home. Yet that scent of eternity is drawing us even now to the beauty, the hope, and the assurance of our ultimate home: Heaven. 

As we navigate through bright and dark days here, we hold on to our faith, each other, and we are held by God’s grace. The shadows we face and feel here—sickness, uncertainty, stress, sorrow—will all eventually lift when we are captivated by that sweet aroma that ushers us into the presence of the One whose face we will clearly see! 

So, let’s keep pressing on until that day when our faith becomes sight!