God appears as fragrance

When I started to study at the university, I attended local Lutheran church in Valmiera, Latvia. I also was part of Christian student movement which was especially blessed. We had activities in dorms such as Bible studies and we also sought to bring testimony to other students by organizing public events. It was great to have a bigger circle of Christian friends of my own age for the first time in my life.

In 2001, I was close to God and I felt that there will be some change; the was a move in the spirit. At the same time, I felt that I desperately needed to know that God is with me. Once during my own prayer time, I asked God to show His presence. I was waiting full of faith and also holy fear of what will happen. After some time, I sensed the fragrance of incense in my room. I inhaled and exhaled deeply several times in disbelief, but it was truly still there. It was very strong for some time, but then disappeared. I was kind of frozen in awe, but also glad that God had answered my prayer. He also spoke to me in my spirit that this was the tenderest way to me to appear, because if I heard a voice or saw something, I may get too scared. There was couple of more times when this happened in prayer. Later at times the fragrance of incense was coming from my guitar as I worshiped on my own in my room. Occasionally, light fragrance accompanied guitar even when I was not playing it.

Through provision of God, I was able to have an exchange semester in Karlstad, Sweden. It was a real spiritual watershed in my life. I will turn to it more in the next entry, but here I would also like to say that I experienced fragrance during prayer times there, as well. However, there it was more like a perfume, better than brand perfumes, but something similar. It was very reassuring about the presence of God and Jesus during that period of my life. I do not remember having similar experiences, however, after 2002. I believe that the the fragrance of incense represented the glory of God the King, but the fragrance of perfume - Him becoming a human and being on our level.