The Broken Toy
The Child Jesus Stories
By Kevin J. W. Driscoll © 2025

Preface:

A wheel breaks
Children laugh
Dust settles
Hands choose not to discard
But to mend

In the grain of wood
A lesson waits
That what is cracked
May yet carry joy again

The toy had been simple, carved from olive wood by Joseph’s steady hands. A small cart with wheels that turned unevenly, its axle slightly crooked, but to Jesus it was treasure. He had pulled it through the dust of Nazareth’s lanes, imagining it a chariot, a wagon, a ship crossing seas of sand.

One morning, as the children gathered near the carpenter’s shop, the cart slipped from his grasp. A stone caught the wheel, and the axle snapped. The toy lay broken, one wheel spinning uselessly in the dirt.

The other children laughed, not cruelly but with the quick delight of those who see something unexpected. “It’s finished,” one boy said. “Throw it away.” Another suggested they use the wood for kindling.

Jesus knelt beside the cart, brushing dust from its surface. His fingers lingered on the splintered axle. He did not…