Day 16
Driving down the road we many times see road kill, and soon after we smell the road kill especially if it is a skunk. It stays with us for a long time. But that smell eventually goes away. Sometimes though, we get sprayed by a skunk. That smell just clings to us and it doesn’t go away. It just stinks!!! The smell is ripe. I have known people for days that can’t get rid of the smell. It is just awful.
Now imagine this, we are a skunk (I wear black and white). Everything we do has our skunk smell involved in it. All of our actions are affected by it. “Our best actions are usually tainted and spoiled by the evil that is rooted in us” (Preparation for Total Consecration, 60). We have a foul smell that clings to our actions. Sometimes it stinks more, sometimes less. The hope is that as skunks we can smell less and less skunk like and put Christ on more.
God keeps showering down upon us His love. “God pours into our soul, infected by original and actual sin, the heavenly waters of grace and the delicious wines of his love, his gifts are usually spoiled and tainted by the evil sediment left in us by sin” (Preparation for Total Consecration, 60). And yet God continues to give grace to us so that we will move forward in loving Him. He knows that we will struggle to have all of our actions done without a hint of sin involved. But we aren’t going to get rid of the skunk smell in a day; it will take a life time of responding to God’s grace.
At the end of the day, a skunk still stinks, but we can be more and more focused on doing all of our actions for the glory of God. And by putting on Christ (which we did as Baptism) we can get rid of our skunkness.