The Portion of my Inheritance

She handed the gift to me and said, “This came from Nazareth.”

I held the carved piece of olive tree in my hand and my emotions overtook me.

From Nazareth? The very same Nazareth that my Lord lived and grew up in? The Carpenter that probably worked with wood just like this?

I held back the tears as my heart took it all in.

I held just a shred, a particle of something that Jesus may have encountered. A everyday part of His life, this olive tree. She had said that the olive trees in Israel are very old. How old I wondered? When I looked it up it said that olive trees could live for several centuries. It said they could have a life span of 2000 years. Could His hands have touched this very same tree?

How appropriate, this carved Nativity, here just a few days before the celebration of His birth and exactly from the place He grew up. 

My heart felt a newness of joy, a connection stretching as far away as Israel as I held this new treasure in my hands. There were no words, but He knew what my heart felt, what words could not express.

Philip found Nathanael and said to him,  “We have found Him of whom Moses in the law, and also the prophets, wrote–Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph.  John 1:45