I’m walking through something really painful with someone I love so much. My tears are flowing alongside them and my heart is aching. And in the midst of it, I WANT to have answers to offer them, or some kind of comfort. And I don’t.

I don’t understand why there are babies all over the world with no mom and dad. I don’t understand why Adam had a stroke. I don’t understand why Isaiah has such a literal broken heart. I don’t understand why some people struggle with depression their whole lives or why innocent people are hurt. I don’t understand the pain that is literally all around me. And it would be so easy to just give.up.on.God’s.goodness. Give up on God’s promises. But I haven’t. Because this is what I do know . . . That in our darkest nights, our most broken places, our deepest cries, HE IS NEAR. In the tears running down our cheeks, in the gulps of air leaving our mouth, in our knees and hands gripping the floor. HE IS NEAR. When everything in our world is shaky, He is our solid, our immovable. He is the rock on which we rest. When everything is broken and messed up, He is our Redeemer and Restorer. When we walk through our longest, hardest valleys, He is our mountaintop. When we are filled with our deepest uncertainties and searching for answers, He is our always faithful.

In the darkest of nights, in the middle of a broken land, in the midst of hundreds of years of silence, an ever-present babe was born in a manger. And they called him Jesus, Emmanuel, GOD WITH US. And that promise remains true every single day of the year.

And Jesus never shied away from pain or turned from broken hearted people. He was near them. He walked with them. He lived with them. He taught them. He loved them. He healed them. And He is near us. His love always holds true. His goodness remains, a gritty beacon we can hold fast to. A determination we can rest our hopes on. A steadfast promise that remains true EVEN STILL.

And so like David, fearing for his life alone in a cave; like Hannah ashamed and desperately longing for a child; like the woman at the well, broken, discarded and longing to belong, we can raise our eyes and our hearts to the sky. We can lift a weary arm and whisper out a cracked praise with tears on our cheeks. And we can know that He.is.here. Emmanuel.