Thoughtful Thursday & A Parable

ON THE BLOG

A PARABLE

Years ago, when I was first married, my mom gave me a small nativity set. 

It isn't fancy, but I love it. 

Still to this day, I place this little nativity on one of my side tables in my living room each year.  

When my children were little they just loved to play with this nativity set and all of its little pieces.

Each year, I would explain to them that I wanted them to treat it carefully and to leave the pieces where they were because I didn't want to lose any of them.  

However, each day during the Christmas season, I would walk by the nativity and all the figurines would be in all different places. 

The wisemen and the shepherds would be all grouped together or facing different directions. 

There would be animals perched on top of the roof of the stable. 

Most of the time, Baby Jesus wasn't even in the manager. 

This drove me crazy.  

Each time, I would walk by the nativity set, I would have to fix it.  

I would put each of the pieces back in their proper place. 

This process would repeat itself multiple times a day. 

Until one day, as I walked by, I noticed that baby Jesus was missing.  

I stopped and looked around and I could not find baby Jesus anywhere.

In my frustration, I began looking for him.

I began getting more and more upset and scolding my children as I searched high and low.  

I couldn't believe they had lost Baby Jesus.  

How could they?  

My voice was probably raised and I probably wasn't very nice. 

During my frantic search, a quiet thought came into my mind that caused me to pause.

It was something like this, “Jill, you are the one who has lost Jesus. 

What if your children playing and holding that baby Jesus is what it is all about?”  

I paused to consider this.

Had I been so caught up in how things looked that I totally missed the purpose of the nativity–of the season–in the first place? 

Was I willing to treat my loved ones in a way that wasn't anything like the Savior because of my need to have things be just so? 

If I really knew Him, would this even matter? 

Now, I am not saying we don't have expectations of how things are treated or that we don't teach our children to respect things.  

This was different.  

They weren't hurting the nativity.  

They were playing with it fine.  

The truth is, I was more concerned with how the nativity was arranged rather than what it represented.

The good news is, I found Jesus that day. 

My kids and I found the little baby Jesus figurine and placed him back into the nativity. 

However, I also began a journey of finding Jesus in my life. 

Now, all of these years later, I love when I see the little nativity figurines in different spots because that means a little one is holding the pieces and maybe in some way getting to know Jesus too.