I remember the Wise Men…
Remember when my mother bought them…
I was eight or nine…
Which makes the wise men official antiques…
And makes me older than antique.
Here’s what I remember…
We stood in the Christmas decorations section of a long since vanished department store…
My mother stared at the wise men.
You could see the thoughts going through her mind…
They were expensive for the time.
She shouldn’t buy them.
Suddenly with a sigh and a determined look, she picks them up…
And takes them to the cashier.
“They’re beautiful,” the cashier says.
She wraps them in tissue paper…
And puts them in one of the store’s signature boxes…
A sturdy gray box with the store’s name and its Fleur-de-Lis logo printed in white.
The wise men made their home in that box for many years.
Every year I’d hold the box in my hands and remember…
Remember the white walls and glass windows of the department store where we bought the wise men
Remember my mother’s hesitation…
And her determined look as she walked to the clerk…
Remember the conversation all the way home in the car.
A conversation she held with herself…
About how the wise men weren’t really that expensive…
Because we’d use them for years.
She talked…
And the car heater hummed…
And the windshield wipers brushed away big floppy snowflakes.
I remember all those sights and sounds again as I set out the wise men.
Faithful in their annual task of remembering God and bringing Him gifts.
And suddenly I realize…
While I remember all those details of a moment years ago…
I forget what really matters.
For it is God we should remember.
We should remember God with all our heart …
For it is He who gives me every single breath…
It is He and He alone who gives me hope for this life… and the next.
Just as the wise men did…
We must remember God…
Remember God with all our heart …
But how do I remember God every day?
And give Him the only gift I have…
Which is my heart…
“I the Lord search the heart and test the mind, to give every man according to his ways, according to the fruit of his deeds.” Jeremiah 17:10
Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths. Proverbs 3:5-6
For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved. Romans 10:10
