What I Need this Christmas.

What do you want for Christmas...?

The question flies around this time of the year and I've spent so much time thinking about what I want and what I need this year.

I see suffering around me. I feel daily the failure I am as the mommy GOD wants me to be. I worry about my kids. I worry about my marriage. I wonder sometimes how I will wake up in the morning and get my kids ready, let alone myself. I feel lost. I feel confused. I feel like my flesh wages such a warfare with my spirit. I want things I don't need. I am scared to death about the capabilities I will have as a mommy to Isabell and Caleb. Will I be what they need?  Will I be able to help their hearts heal?  Will we all learn sign-language enough to communicate to Caleb he is loved?  What if Isabell never walks?  What if we never recover financially?  I worry about our house. Will it be big enough?  Is it too big? I fight feelings of jealously over others homes and stuff and kids and marriages. I don't have the answers to the questions I am asked and feel the failure, the pressure. I don't say the things I need to say. I spend time with the lost, and don't share the gospel. I question my own heart.  I question my motives. I fail. Over and over again I fail. I sin.
What do I need for Christmas?

I need God HERE. With me. Helping me. Caring for me. Loving me. I need unconditional love. I need someone to look past my failures. I need God HERE.
Emmanuel, God with us.

Oh, those words they have medicated my soul. Emmanuel, my God has come to be with us.

Jesus was born a man. He was born in a stable. He was born in filthy conditions. Things like blood, sweat, feces, a placenta, an umbilical cord, pain, tears, they were present when Jesus was born. He was born just like you and I. Born to be a man WITH us. Rarely have I ever realized the humanness of His birth. Those words they just aren't "churchy." They just didn't fit in the manger scene I had. For me, Jesus' birth was almost un-touchable. Un-approachable. Something so Holy, I could not be a part of. Holy indeed, but human. Jesus came here, to live among our mess, our dysfunction, our sin, our failures. He came here.  Even more awe-invoking is the fact that He did this for us. He did this to save us from our rebellion to HIMSELF. While I was a sinner, cursing Him, not trusting Him, failing Him, denying Him, He came to live here with us in this mess, to be Emmanuel, God with us.

He came for the potty-mouth talking kids. He came for the greedy, for the jealous, for the moms who let their children down, for the lonely, for the liars, for the thieves, for those who deny Him, for those that work too much, for the sick, for the widow, for the orphan, for all of us, for me.

Emmanuel, God with us. He is NOT untouchable. He is not far away. He is here, with us.

This Christmas I need God with me. I need Emmanuel. Praise God He came. He is with us. It is my hearts desire this Christmas to share Emmanuel with my children. To show them Jesus is real, with us, approachable.  We can bring our real, filthy, weary, dirty selves to Him.

The real words out of Jesus' mouth:"Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest."
Matthew 11:28