We lost Jesus.

February 16 and I have just put up the last of our Christmas.  As in … the very last.

Late, I know.

It was really just one thing.  Everything else has been put away for a long time … except for our nativity scene.  

You see, we lost Jesus.

Somewhere I had read (pintrest maybe?) where families put baby Jesus away when they set out their nativites.  On Christmas Day they put him in the manger … symbolizing that he is born.  I thought that was a great idea.

At least a great idea until Christmas Eve came and we couldn’t find Jesus. 

Anywhere. 

Just so you know … and not to point fingers, but Bill hid him.  And he has a pretty good (bad?) track record of losing things he has hidden.  We will forever be looking for the baseball Bill caught at Jacob’s first major league baseball game.  

The last seven weeks or so we’ve been looking for Jesus and try as we might, we just can’t find him.  So, I told the kids … “we are putting the nativity away but we are still going to be looking for Jesus”.

All year.

Until we find him.

And what is so great is this … we ARE going to find him one day and he is going to have been here all along. 

And I just think that is very cool … a metaphor really … of our lives.  And how we can look and look … perhaps in all the wrong places for Jesus.  We can become frustrated with how things are turning out.  We can wonder where he is and why he isn’t showing up.  We can think he isn’t there.

And then, one day, we’ll realize … he’s been there all along.

I will be looking for Jesus this year.  And even if we find that small plastic Jesus that completes our nativity … we will keep on seeking him, looking for him in the details of my life.