Are There Bethlehem Stars in Your World?

 

I love Christmas....Christmas music...Christmas stories...Christmas memories ...Christmas lights...and Christmas treasures that I come across when I look back through the chapters of my life. It is my joy to share some of them here...
 

It was a treat to have little Miss Michal sitting by me in church.  She lives so far away, and there are never enough chances for this Grandma to snuggle her first grandchild.

Michal was drawing quietly while I was trying hard not to apply the pastor’s words to my own life; words about priorities… and busy-ness… and the tyranny of the urgent… and stress.  Michal tugged on my arm to show me her picture.  I looked at what her little five-year-old fingers had drawn and whispered, “Oh, honey, that’s a beautiful flower!”  Her chin dropped at my obvious lack of art appreciation as she said, “It isn’t a flower, Grandma; it’s the Bethlehem star over the baby Jesus.”  I looked again.  Of course!  There it was – the manger, Mary, Joseph, the baby, and the star! How much more obvious could it have been?

I wondered then how many other things I miss because I’m not looking for them…blessings that get pushed aside because of the very things the pastor was talking about.

 I vowed to myself and Miss Michal and our Lord that I would diligently seek to find the Bethlehem stars of my world….that I would try to keep my priorities straight…that I would try to spend my energy on things of eternal value and that I would try to look at life with the innocence of a child.

My prayer for you at this Christmas season is that you will do the same and that you, too, will see the babe in the manger as “the one who came to seek and to save that which was lost” (Matthew 19:10) and most of all, that the Bethlehem star will light your way.

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That was one of my favorite Christmas Sundays. In fact, I was so anxious to share the profound simplicity of a child’s heart that I wrote that little memory in the shape of a Christmas tree, then copied and shrunk Michal’s drawing and used it as the topper on the tree.  Set on colored paper and decorated with (what else?) stars, it became my Christmas card the following year. To this day, my favorite Christmas decorations, cookies and music are all a variation of the Bethlehem star. Thank you, Michal.