Day 14: The Missing Christ Child

This story is from Sally, and I love it:

My story begins years ago when I was back­pack­ing through Israel and bought a beau­ti­ful hand-carved nativ­ity set from olive wood. I set it out every year as my favorite Christ­mas dec­o­ra­tion. When my youngest son was two, he kept tak­ing the lit­tle baby Jesus from the manger to play with him. I would tell him not to, but he loved that lit­tle piece. Then one day, the baby was lost. I was so dis­ap­pointed — what was the point of hav­ing a nativ­ity if the focal point was gone?

I didn’t set it out for the next cou­ple of years, but one Christ­mas I was think­ing about how we needed to incor­po­rate the Sav­ior more in our Christ­mas cel­e­bra­tions and I thought of that set. When we lost the piece that year, I spent a long time look­ing all over the house for the baby Jesus, and then I real­ized — that is what I should be doing every year! That is the whole point of Christ­mas! So I now set that nativ­ity out with the miss­ing baby and it reminds me every year to focus on spend­ing my time search­ing dili­gently for Christ.

Thank you, Sally.