My New Year’s Resolution: Be Soap

Before we leave to drive home from our holiday travels, we fear enduring the horrific smell in our minivan.  On the trip down, both girls get carsick all over the seats, the floor–everything in sight.  Have you ever been in a situation that was so unpleasant that it becomes comical?  Picture us pulling off of the highway, both girls vomiting, a snowstorm upon us, and no way to get the car clean.  And we still have 6 hours of driving left. 

Ha ha ha. 

It’s hard to live with flair sometimes. 

Once at our destination, we try everything to remove the smell, including all sorts of sprays and deodorizers.  Nothing helps.  Then, Grandpa tells us his tried and true way of removing any car odor.   You simply take a bar of soap and put it under the seats.

As we pack up the car to drive home, I’m doubtful as I put that little bar of Irish Spring under the seat. I’m plugging my nose and hating everything about holiday traveling. 

An hour later, we pile in, and we cannot smell the carsick odor.  I keep smelling the air, skeptical.
 
It’s completely gone.  The carsick smell is gone!   All day long, I’m thinking about a little bar of soap with the power to change a whole environment.  I can’t figure it out, but I know it’s working.  The soap somehow absorbs and neutralizes the offending smell.

Meanwhile, I have 10 hours of travel to consider my New Year’s Resolution.  And then it occurs to me that I want to influence my environment like that little bar of soap.  Can I somehow absorb and neutralize every terrible, offensive, negative thing–neutralize it–and in turn refresh whatever situation I’m in?

In 2011, I want to absorb and neutralize.  I want to counterbalance every attack with the good, the true, and the beautiful.  And I can because of God within me.  Might God use us all to change every toxic environment into a sweet smelling paradise?   Even a small intervention–as small as soap tucked under a seat–can change everything.