4-2-22 WHEN JESUS COMES OUT OF MY HEART

Tessa Jane

Tessa, age 4, has been a little fixated lately on Jesus being in her heart. This morning she prefaced a sentence with “When Jesus comes out of my heart….” I’m sorry to say I can’t remember what the rest of the sentence was. 

Tess is the youngest of the young ‘ns, the littlest of our littles. Since yesterday, April 1^st was also the first Friday in the month, that meant it was sleep over day for the Merrill kids. Our daughter, Annie, has had a heavy-duty year, so for Christmas we gave her the First Friday of every month as a night off for her and Jordon. The kids spend the evening, sleep over, and we do some sort of something the next morning, then they go home. Last month their cousin Walter joined the club. This month their cousins Joe and Grace came up from Herriman for the night. All of them are between 4 and 10 years old.

Tessa had packed her own suitcase. 
All the essentials.

First Friday wears me out. And I love it. Fridays usually also include a presidency meeting for my Relief Society (women’s service group) and a weekly church stake welfare report I have to write, sometimes an afternoon gig, and then the kids. Dave has had an intense trial all week, the jury was out until late Thursday night, and a full day in court Friday. We end up crashing pretty late Friday night, all of us in our bedroom: seven people last night. 

This morning also included me having to jump the emotion-tracks and going to the mortuary to help dress a neighbor woman who had passed away. Thinking back on the last few hours, it seems the whole span of life rolled out before me; the vigor and innocence of childhood, the achy legs and weariness of an aging grandmother, to the end result lying cold and stiff but quite lovely in the basement of a mortuary. Man, life goes fast!

I had made cinnamon roll dough yesterday, so first thing, while the other kids were off making their various messes in their various creative play places and playgrounds, Beth and I made cinnamon rolls

First, Beth had to show me how
she's learning to do handstands.

... then she set to work.

I wanted Bethy to make her hands do the work, to see that she could do it herself, so first she washed them, then she donned her apron and chef’s hat to keep her hair out of things, and off she went. I divided the dough into four pieces. She pressed each piece into a rectangle, working it with her fingers instead of a rolling pin because, frankly, I’ve learned that works just as well if not better. (I wish I had had a grandmother who could teach me such things.) Then she spread the butter to all the edges except the bottom, that needed to be clear of grease so the dough would seal together when it was rolled. Then she mixed the cinnamon sugar and sprinkled it on. By the fourth dozen she had it all down and did every bit of it herself, even rolling and sealing the dough, shifting it and cutting it to make an even dozen for each pan. Dear Bethy has learned to use her hands well.

Ready for the oven

Fruits of her labors.

While the rolls baked we made dinner. I laid a vinyl tablecloth over the table and scrubbed it clean. I had whipped up a big old pot of marinara sauce and Dave boiled some spaghetti. We mixed the sauce with the drained noodles and put them back in the pan. The kids all sat at the empty table and Tessy said a blessing on the food. Then Gump brought the pot over and just dumped the pasta in the middle of the table, calling out "April Fools" as he did it. 

What in the world...?

The kids were stunned! They screamed in disbelief; first of all that spaghetti would just be dumped on the table with no bowl, and secondly, that Gumpa would do such a thing! I mean, GUMPA? Calm, quiet, unaffected Gumpa? Then we handed them tongs and told them that’s what they had to eat it with. It was hilarious, and they talked about it all night and into the morning. It was truly a giggle-with-the-memory-of-it image to see their little hands maneuvering those big serving tongs to eat their noodles.

April Foolishness!

With a little Parmesan cheese

Grabbing grub.

Gracie did a pretty good job with those big salad tongs.

...so did Beth.

...and Cal.

Cousins help each other out.

The kids watched a little show while Gump and I cleaned up the dinner and cinnamon roll mess, then it was egg dying time. MmmmHmmm, good thing we had that vinyl tablecloth. The boys spent their time trying to find ways to April Fool us and weren’t much into egg dying. Calvn drew a smiley face on one of the boiled white eggs. And they found a big bag of egg-shaped shakers somewhere in the house and tried to fake us out that they were real. By ten o’clock, when they might be normally sleeping, we were finishing up and watching the end of that show they had started earlier. Hooray for pause buttons! My hands, and their hands, still show evidence that we dyed eggs last night. I don’t know why the fingernail on the index finger of my left hand is so insistent about holding onto blue dye!

sweet, busy little hands

When we were done they brushed their teeth, we said a prayer, then they hunkered down in their spots on our bedroom floor and I sang them to sleep. Well, to be honest, I sang myself to sleep, too.

This morning, after pancakes with blueberries, syrup and strawberry jam, they each stood at the sink and I washed their sticky fingers. I reviewed the evidence of pasta sauce and Easter egg dye and excessive creative fun as soap and water tried, somewhat unsuccessfully, to wash the colors away. I felt a flash of regret, wishing we were not the kind of people to wash away proof that we live. Like the freshly cleaned hair and beautifully made-up skin on the dead sister in the mortuary, we wash away the sweat of life. It’s not evil by any means. I’m just trying to let myself notice the beauty in the messes. Dirty, colorful, happy hands are witnesses to a life engaged. Out of neutral and into any gear, just moving in some direction. I am reminded through all of it how blessed we are to have bodies that work, to have hands that get messy:

Cinnamon-sugar-spaghetti-sauce-Easter-egg-dye-playground-dirt messy.

Tessy, I think it’s probably ok if you just let Jesus sleep over in your heart. During the day, I think He likes to come out of your heart and be in your busy, happy, colorful little-child hands.

Jesus is in her heart,
and her hands.