Matthew 2:11 – And going into the house, they saw the child with Mary his mother, and they fell down and worshiped him. Then, opening their treasures, they offered him gifts, gold and frankincense and myrrh. (ESV)

We place several nativity sets in our home, and they range from cute to fancy to wooden to ceramic. I have saved bits and pieces from my mother's set and incorporated them into my own. Therefore, I wound up with multiples of each figurine, so I purposely display a few "extras" for various reasons and reminders. For example, a fourth wise man heads toward Bethlehem to represent the inspirational book by Henry van Dyke, The Other Wise Man, and the movie based on it. I also kept an additional small lamb to lay beside the manger, as written about in Max Lucado's children's book, The Crippled Lamb. I realize that both stories are fictional, but each one contains spiritually based reminders that are meaningful to me in my faith.

This year, I found that one of our "Cherished Teddy" wise men was missing the head from the camel (hobby horse) that he was holding. As I was looking at my broken figurine and considering whether I should order a replacement, I noticed that though the item in his right hand was broken, he was holding (and offering) a patchwork heart in his other hand. A thought immediately came to me that we are all broken in some way or another, but our brokenness does not make us discardable or replaceable. We have value to our God just the way we are. Additionally, we can give Him exactly what He is seeking — our patched hearts! So, I placed the heart-giving, broken wise man back in the nativity scene as another reminder with meaningful, inspirational significance.

Perhaps I have quite a large imagination to see these stories and reminders within our inanimate nativity sets. But if we all look at things with Christ-centred hearts, love, and the innocent faith of a child, we will see reminders, miracles, God-moments, and inspirational reflections all around us.

Prayer: Dear God, may our Christmas decorations and nativity scenes speak to us in different, meaningful ways, and may they remind us of Christ's unequivocal and ever-present love in our lives, as we keep Him at the forefront of our thoughts. In His name, we pray. Amen.