Do you have any purple bedroom furniture?

Do you have a pink bedroom to put purple furniture in?

We have both at our house, and our two granddaughters think it is fantastic!

Not too long ago, I bought a bed and chest that were unfinished, so I chose to paint them purple for Mallory and Jaleah.

Mallory was at our house the day I painted them and she wanted to help, so I gave her a paint roller and she went to work. Not only were her hands at work, but her mind was in high gear as well. We talked about a lot of things (please understand that most of the talking came from her. If you have spent any time with a 6-year-old girl you understand very well what I mean!).

As gnats soared all about our heads during the project, Mallory’s questions turned toward insects. Since she still believes her Papa has to be one of the wisest and smartest people on the face of the earth, holding nothing back, she hit me with her hard question: Do insects go to Heaven when they die?

What an open door that presented for me to tell her that God created us with something different from animals and insects. I was able to tell her that God gave us a soul that lives forever. And if we have Christ living in our hearts, we will go to Heaven and be with Him forever. As for gnats, butterflies and such, they just simply no longer exist when they die.

Since we are different from other forms of life created by God, we are able to be touched by Him in personal and precious ways. We are reminded of this through what God said to Jeremiah in the Old Testament when He called him to be a prophet. We find these words in Jeremiah 1:5: “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart; I appointed you as a prophet to the nations” (NIV).

In this verse, God was addressing Jeremiah specifically.

Nevertheless, there are some truths we can glean from it that apply to each of us.

One of those truths is that, because we have a living soul, we can hear from God. God spoke undeniably to Jeremiah and He still speaks to us today. He speaks to us through His recorded Word, through the circumstances of life and through the Holy Spirit speaking into our hearts.

The problem, though, is not God’s failure to speak, but our often time refusal to listen.

Another truth to consider from this verse is that, because we have a living soul, God is passionately concerned about us. Just as He knew Jeremiah and had a plan for his life before he was even born, He knows us as well. We should make it our business daily to live in a fashion so that we do not hinder His plan from being realized in our lives.

Little girls know how to make us think about some deep and eternally important truths.

As for the paint job, it turned out so well that I bought another piece to go with it—it is yet to be painted. Maybe Mallory can join me for that too. There is no telling what her next question will be!