Welcome to today's encouragement from Our Daily Bread.

Our reading titled The Coffee Bean Bowl was written by Dave Brannon.

I'm not a coffee drinker, but one sniff of coffee beans brings me a moment of both solace and wistfulness.

When our teenage daughter Melissa was making her bedroom uniquely hers,

she filled a bowl with coffee beans to permeate her room with a warm, pleasant scent.

It's been nearly two decades since Melissa's earthly life ended in a car accident at age

17. But we still have that coffee bean bowl. It gives us a continual aromatic remembrance of Mel's

life with us. Scripture also uses fragrances as a reminder. Song of Songs refers to fragrances as a symbol of love

between a man and a woman. In Hosea, God's forgiveness of Israel is said to be fragrance like a cedar

of Lebanon, and Mary's anointing of Jesus' feet, which caused the house of Mary and her

siblings to be filled with the fragrance of the perfume, pointed ahead to Jesus' death.

The idea of fragrance can also help us be mindful of our testimony of faith to those around us.

Paul explained it this way in 2 Corinthians chapter 2.

We are to God the pleasing aroma of Christ among those who are being saved and those who are

perishing.

Just as the scent of coffee beans reminds me of Melissa,

may our lives produce a scent of Jesus and his love that reminds others of their need of him.

Today's Our Daily Bread devotional scripture reading is from John chapter 12 verses 1 through 7.

Six days before the Passover, Jesus came to Bethany, where Lazarus lived, whom Jesus had raised from the dead.

Here a dinner was given in Jesus' honor. Martha served while Lazarus was among those reclining at the table with him.

Then Mary took about a pint of pure nard, an expensive perfume.

She poured it on Jesus' feet and wiped his feet with her hair,

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