Nicole Berlucchi, Writer on a Mission

Last week I started to notice an odor in our pantry. I couldn’t quite figure it out at first. The smell was unpleasant, but not something I could identify. Most of the food in our pantry is nonperishables, aside from two baskets of breads and produce, plus some dog food and treats. Because of this, there isn’t typically a smell when you walk into the pantry. But now…there was definitely a smell, almost indiscreet, but stinky.

I find the smell of dog food unpleasant, so my immediate thought was that and tightened up the dog food bag closing. I rearranged things so the dog food and treats were tucked back away, hoping that would temper whatever smell they were creating in my pantry. Perfect—problem solved!

After a day or so, I noticed the smell was not in fact lessening, but was increasing. The smell seemed to be everywhere in the pantry no matter where I was, hard to sniff out the source. I was frustrated and consulted with my family. Had anyone else noticed a smell in the pantry? No one had. I started to think it was my imagination. I let it go another day.

Finally, one evening, the smell in the pantry was stronger than ever, gag-worthy. I knew I was not imagining things. I needed to find the source of this smell. I began sticking my head in the bread basket, sorting through the various bags checking for mold. The produce basket was fairly empty and didn’t have anything rotten. I went to the dog food. While it stunk, it was not the same as the smell that was bothering me. So, next I literally sniffed carefully along the pantry, shelf by shelf to locate the source of the smell. On the second shelf, I found it. A clear, foul-smelling liquid that was possibly leaking from a can of shortening? This didn’t add up. The can did not appear to have a leak. I kept sniffing and on the next shelf above, I found the true source… A cup of what used to be milk, had solidified into a chunk at the bottom, but also had been knocked over releasing a clear foul smelling liquid over that shelf and the shelf below, filling our pantry with its odor. One of my children had hidden their milk from dinner into the pantry so as not to finish it, and forgotten about it.

This curdled milk and its smell got my thinking about the devil, probably in part because some friends told me about their recent viewing of Nefarious, a new movie out about a conversation with a prisoner possessed by a demon named Nefarious. The movie is supposed to be a modern-day approach to the Screwtape Letters. I am working up the courage to go see it!

Back to my stinky smell-devil analogy…the devil hides himself amid the contents of your mind, unnoticed. Slowly, you start to notice something…a negative thought, a nagging fear, a discouraging voice, self-doubt. Those rumblings start out pretty simple, just unpleasant enough to notice it, but it isn’t completely distracting, just occasionally. But when you leave it, dismissing the need to weed it out, it starts to grow, to solidify, until the devil’s voice is hard to ignore.

You might start moving some things around because of it. Maybe the devil is trying to stop you from pursuing a particular friendship that could be really important in your life. So, he starts to plant reasons this person doesn’t like you or doesn’t fit in your life.  You start to think the source something other than it actually is…maybe God is telling you this friendship isn’t worth pursuing, or maybe your life is just too full for more friends. If you continue to pursue the friendship, the devil gets louder. He might create conflicts or hurdles that align with doubts you are already having. He will begin to consume your thoughts with negative ideas around this person or this friendship. He will start to tell you the other person doesn’t want the friendship. Anything to stop you. That is how you know it is the devil, because he is relentless. He is not gentle. He is the smell that will not be ignored, but he also does not want to be found out.

Maybe it’s a new prayer routine, and a few weeks after starting it, you get sick with the flu and lose the routine. When you are finally better, you start second guessing the routine you developed. Do those prayers really matter? Was there even a difference in your relationship with God? The devil might even start showing you the lesser benefits of less time in prayer….you had time to unload the dishwasher first thing in the morning. You had time to blow dry your hair so you didn’t have to leave the house with it still wet. But these are not really benefits at all, they are simply distractions to keep you from discovering what’s really keeping you from getting back your prayer routine. Ask the Holy Spirit and your Guardian Angel to help you. I was having trouble waking in the mornings at one point and my Guardian Angel did me a solid and made sure I was awake at 6 am. I know it sounds crazy but it is true. Alarms don’t wake me because I cannot hear them. The devil will be screaming sleep one more hour, but trust me, you will feel so much better if you get out of bed.

Maybe you’ve decided to lead a new ministry or project at Church or in your community, and someone presents you with negative feedback. If the devil had been working on you for some time, you might have had reservations already about whether this was something you should be leading. The negative feedback helps grow your internal reservations until you are feeling really discouraged. The devil will pour a million reasons into your head over why this was never a good idea until you decide this was a horrible idea and drop it. He wants you think you’ve thought this through, but the devil’s intention is to make sure you don’t think it all the way through. Which is why, when you have an inspiration for a ministry, be prepared for a spiritual battle and constantly be asking the Lord’s protection over it. If you feel yourself drowning in the negative, intentionally make a list of the positives, because most times, you will see they far outweigh the negatives.

You need to take time to examine what you are hearing internally, especially if it is deterring you from pursuing something you thought would be good for you, your life, your relationship with God, your vocation. You need to “sniff” it out by taking it very intentionally to prayer. You should ask for protection over whatever God is asking you to pursue. God is gentle. He wouldn’t plant relentless negative thoughts in your head unless they were to deter you from committing a sin or veering way off course.

There are a million different ways the devil creeps into our lives to stink things up. Don’t let him! If you notice something amiss, find the root of it, take it to prayer and ask our Lord and the Blessed Mother to help you identify the source of these thoughts. Then when you find where the devil has been taking up space, creating a stink, take the time to scrub those shelves clean, read scripture, continue to pray, and let the fragrance of the Lord fill your life!