to the woman on the street-
smoking the dying embers of a cigarette
looking for the smallest trace of warmth...
Immanuel
to the downtown shoppers, with designer names and dreams, carrying all the anxiety of deadlines, of schedules,and of coming up short..
Immanuel
to the husband, looking into blue eyes of a best friend who doesn't remember.
Doesn't remember the date, doesn't remember watercolor paints,and doesn't remember the names of their children...
Immanuel
to the broken families, staring at where they would sit if they ever chose to come- meals divided over broken trust and broken hearts...
Immanuel
to the older brother and his sleeping sister,her white hands on white sheets, exhausted with the fight...
Immanuel
to the children singing with their bells, rosy cheeked and bright eyed, not knowing of the corrupt times in which they ring...
Immanuel
to the foreigner, miles away from his family, and worlds away from knowing his true Home...
Immanuel
to the doctor, silently bearing the grief and stoically bridging the void for three years since his passing, fighting back tears as she lays out the gifts alone...
Immanuel
to the soldier over seas, making the honorable commitment of a man while still being very much a boy...
Immanuel
to his mother and the loss of which she does not yet know.
Immanuel
to the career woman, alone on her catalog living room floor, with her catalog wine glass, and her catalog sweater, weeping over the things she cannot buy...
Immanuel
to the Honduran people. to the fatherless families crowding into their one room homes for one meal, wishing for one thing...
Immanuel
to all the weary travelers.
to all the broken vessels.
to all the empty hearts.
Immanuel.
GOD WITH US.
THEREFORE
the darkness does not win,
nor does it understand,
how in the midst of so much sadness
true Light has entered in.
*photograph by Beth Hedy Adams
4 comments:
i love that you have remembered the forgotten during this season of celebration where we so easily get caught up in what we have and receive.
thank you for reminding me that the hope i need is the same hope that everyone needs.
"Hope deferred makes the heart sick,
but a longing fulfilled is a tree of life."
Proverbs 13:12
my hope is in the Lord.
amen jessi. again you penned it.
this year end has been a very strange one for me. it does not feel like holidays. it does not feel like christmas. it does not feel like anything normally should. i think i know why but i also do not know why.
in my reflections i have reached one conclusion though and that is that i have grown spiritually this year, more so than ever before. i have not grown in knowledge or wisdom but i have grown in my need for grace. i have grown in my realities that i really am a terrible sinner who needs Him and Him alone. i have grown in my perceptions of others. i have become tender towards others because i have started seeing them through the grace that i so desperately need. you have been part of this revelation and this growth process. thank you for allowing yourself to be used jessi.
i have not posted about christmas as my heart has not been there. i have instead been elsewhere. i have been aware of how far the world has drifted from Him. i have taken a backseat and i have quietly prayed that He reveal Himself to me beacuse I want that more than anything else right now.
my prayer is that i will know Immanuel. thank you for setting an example of what it means to know Him.
...the sun of righteous shall rise with healing in its wings.
Malachi 4:2
Thank you for your post.
Very true. This post has really moved me (to tears). Hope is a vital thing to have, and you have reminded me of that.
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