I’m going straight to hell

This Christmas marked a few milestones for me personally. I entertained both on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, something I haven’t done if 6 + years – maybe more like 2010? I always enjoyed entertaining, but for a while I didn’t have the capacity to do it well. So I restarted that this year, it felt good.

Secondly, I received the most thoughtful gift from my parents. Something I had been wanting for a very long time – one of those deep-seated desires in the heart. They gave me a Christmas Nativity Scene – I had not had one before!

I was beyond touched. I was joking with my parents earlier when the big wrapped box showed up by the tree – I asked: “What is it a vacuum?” We had been talking about needing a vacuum earlier and my Dad said: “Oh yea, how did you know — it IS a vacuum”…the joker that he is.

After our guests left Christmas Eve, I unwrapped the box to my delight. I immediately start opening the box up – taking out the pieces. The manger, the Angel, Mary, Joseph, the donkey, the three kings, all are beautiful pieces. They were all in plastic bags for protection. I’m placing them all on my coffee table – one by one – admiring them as I go. I was kind of in a state of awe since the gift caught me by surprise.

I get to the last, and most important piece in the set – Baby Jesus. I pick him up to look at him in the little bag, and this bag looked sealed so I’m moving it around inside the bag a little and WHAM… Baby Jesus falls out of the bag in the blink of an eye, takes a nose dive onto the coffee table, and SNAPS his poor little head off on impact.

What just happened?

Oh my goodness, I’ve beheaded Baby Jesus!

I look at my Mom who is right there with me – and we just say nothing and stare in disbelief. I cannot believe this just happened. At this point, I feel like I’m going to cry, and my son walks in and says “What did you do?”

He sees Baby Jesus in pieces and says, “You broke him!” and cracks himself up into giggles. I look at my mother, and I start cracking myself up. Only I would break the most important piece in the set… it couldn’t have been the donkey, sheep or anything else…

The discussion starts
…Should we just return it and say it was broken in the box? That doesn’t seem right to me so I say no to that option
—Look up the manufacturer, maybe you can order just that piece from them? I start looking it up, find a part #, but its a private label product and the information wasn’t coming up quickly on my phone.

Sigh.

So, after some thought, I ask my Dad to try to glue him. He is the master fixer of things, and we always have super glue around.

After some effort, and it wasn’t easy because there is not alot of space on the neck for the glue to set. He propped it upright overnight so there was downward pressure on it.

There’s got to be a lesson in this for me somewhere, right? And then it comes to me, it is right there in front of me.

Aren’t we all broken at some level? I know I am, I’m definitely not perfect. This is certainly a reminder of that! As the saying go, God likes to use cracked pots (people) so his light can shine through. How could I reject that piece just because it’s broken, especially if he can stay together? I woke up the next day and Jesus was in tact and back in the manger where he belonged.

All is well in the world again. And always remember that we humans do have a way of putting ourselves back together again. This Christmas was certainly an example of that for me.