by Amy Crist
Luke 2:15 – “When the angels had left them and gone into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, ‘Let us go to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has told us about.’”
Each Christmas when I was a child, my father read us A Certain Small Shepherd by Rebecca Caudill. It’s the story of Jamie, a young boy in the Kentucky mountains who could not speak. His mother had died shortly after childbirth. Although the neighbors found it foolish, when he was old enough, Jamie’s father sent him to the one room schoolhouse every day with his sisters. Jamie sat and listened. He loved to draw and write but often became quite frustrated when he couldn’t express himself verbally like the other children.
Every year the children of Hurricane Gap put on a Christmas play at the little white church that stood across the road from Jamie’s house. Chosen to play a shepherd in the pageant, Jamie longed to take part in the story of Jesus’ birth. But on Christmas Eve a winter storm cancelled the play. Jamie’s heart broke — until, on Christmas morning, his father took him to the church, where strangers had found shelter for the night. There, a mother, father, and newborn baby rested in the stable.
Jamie, seeing the scene he had hoped to live out, ran home through mounds of snow and returned with his gifts — an orange and a dime from his stocking. Laying them before the family, he spoke for the first time: “Here is a Christmas gift for the child.”
What a picture of faith — not rehearsed or polished, but pure and responsive. Jaime didn’t wait for the perfect stage or the right weather. He recognized the holy moment before him and stepped into it with what he had.
Advent invites us to do the same. To move from watching the story of Christ’s coming to living it out in small, faithful ways — offering kindness, generosity, or presence to those in need. Like Jamie, we may find that when we act out of love, God gives voice to something in us that had long been silent.
May we, too, have the will to dream — to believe that Christ is still being born among us, in unexpected places, through ordinary acts of grace.
Reflection Question:
Where might God be inviting you to step out of the story’s audience and take your place within it this Advent season?
Prayer:
Lord, give me a shepherd’s heart—ready to listen, ready to act, and ready to offer what I have for love of You. Amen
