O' Holy Night | 5-Days Christmas Reading PlanSample

With Us

They will call him Emmanuel, which means “God is with us.” (Matthew 1:23)

On a Christmas morning years ago, I stood beside my dad at the foot of the stairs and saw the sadness in his face. The effects of dementia were progressing. He realized he’d never again climb those stairs and enter the room he’d shared with my mom all these years.

Our family entered a season of waiting. Waiting for the disease to remove Daddy’s voice and thinking. Waiting for the moment when his eyes would tell us he didn’t know who we were. Waiting for the endings to come.

That Christmas I found hope in the song “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel.” It’s about waiting. The Israelites had been waiting for the Messiah to come—wondering if He really would. Their waiting, however, wasn’t in vain. Jesus was born into our world to save us from sin—His birth the fulfillment of prophecy hundreds of years before: “The virgin will conceive a child! She will give birth to a son and will call him Emmanuel (which means ‘God is with us’),” said the prophet Isaiah (7:14).

Jesus’ birth redeems the endings in our life. His presence strengthens us as we wait for them and journey through them. God was with my dad that day as he looked up the flight of stairs. And one day, He will be with us, forever. He’s the end of all our painful waiting—the end of all our endings. God is with us (Matthew 1:23). —KAREN HUANG

How does the truth of God’s presence with you transform your seasons of waiting? Even while knowing that life is full of endings, why can you still look to the future with hope?

Dear Jesus, thank You for being my Emmanuel.