12.14.12

This morning it is raining.
And while I know that this city is miles away from yesterday's town tragedy,
the heartbreak is surpassing state boundaries, falling on each roof top in a steady, sorrowful rhythm.

I think God is weeping. I know that is a grand statement to make. Some could make arguments against it, attributing my linking of the weather to worldly devastation as a childish literary device. But I disagree.

Scripture shows us over and over again the God we serve. He is a God who weeps over the death of one, cries out for a nation who He knows in days will crucify him, and tells his disciples to have empathy with those who are hurting.

The sky and sea belong to this great Comforter and I know he feels it. So I watch the rain fall and ask Him so many questions between silent tears of my own.

The fears and cries ascend to Him from everywhere.
Mine are not new.

A dark morning passes by in mourning...
The final question: What is to come, Lord Jesus?

Answered only by a lifting of my head to see our Nativity scene, with the word Emmanuel written beneath in chalk.

Emmanuel...
So it is.
And so we hold fast to this word more than ever.

Several Christmases ago I was led to pen the words below.
He called these words to mind, and I feel compelled to add one more stanza.



to the woman on the street-
smoking the dying embers of a cigarette
looking for the smallest trace of warmth...

Emmanuel

to the downtown shoppers, with designer names and dreams, carrying all the anxiety of deadlines, of schedules,and of coming up short..

Emmanuel

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...

Emmanuel

to the broken families, staring at where they would sit if they ever chose to come- meals divided over broken trust and broken hearts...

Emmanuel

to the older brother and his sleeping sister,her white hands on white sheets, exhausted with the fight...

Emmanuel

to the children singing with their bells, rosy cheeked and bright eyed, not knowing of the corrupt times in which they ring...

Emmanuel

to the foreigner, miles away from his family, and worlds away from knowing his true Home...

Emmanuel

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...

Emmanuel

to the soldier over seas, making the honorable commitment of a man while still being very much a boy...

Emmanuel

to his mother and the loss of which she does not yet know.

Emmanuel

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...

Emmanuel

to the Honduran people. to the fatherless families crowding into their one room homes for one meal, wishing for one thing...

Emmanuel

to the mothers whose very hearts were taken in blood, and the fathers whose angels now sing in heaven, back from school embraces ripped away by bullets

Immanuel

to all the weary travelers.
to all the broken vessels.
to all the empty hearts.

Emmanuel.

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.

This Christmas I will cling to my God/Man Savior, who came to earth in the form of a babe for this very present darkness. I will cling to Him and think of this season, the promise that came. I will cling to Him and think of Easter, the promise that died and rose again. And I will cling to Him and think of tomorrow, and the promise that He. is. coming.