That's the Spirit

There is a positive side to having your kids all at once, like triplets or something. They all can be at the same developmental stage. While this may drive you absolutely nuts for a while (like breastfeeding), later on it seems to me it would get much better. We didn't do this, though we came close with the boys. Since they are only 13 months apart, they appreciate each other's ludicrous attempts at hilarity, thus sparing me the need to attempt to laugh. ("Knock knock! Who's there? Gompy. Gompy who? Gompy banana! Bwahahaha!") In most ways, I'm very grateful I didn't have multiples at once, largely because I thought I would go nuts each time I added only one arrow to the quiver. However, having all of our kids as a batch would have made illustrations age-appropriate to all of them at the same time.

For better or for worse, that is not how we have been blessed. The other night we were talking about surrender to the Holy Spirit and how God changes our stony hearts to hearts of flesh. To illustrate, I lightly pinched the skin between my thumb and forefinger. "See, this is flesh," I explained. "It's not hard like a rock. When God changes our hearts, He makes them soft like this, so they aren't hard and mean."

The next day when Anaya was battling with an attitude issue, I reminded her of this. "Anaya, What kind of attitude do you have right now? Are you letting the Holy Spirit be in your heart?"

Skyler jumped in to aid his sister in grasping spiritual realities. "Anaya, you can tell if you just pinch here." He pinched the skin between his thumb and forefinger. "If it's soft, you have Jesus in your heart."

I tried to help him out without offending him. "Sweetie, that's almost it. But we're talking about your heart..."

"Oh!" He slapped his chest. "You have to be soft here instead!"