This year I did something new with my youngest child for the Christmas season.

She struggles the most with the getting the “gimmies” at Christmas.  I needed something to get the focus off of her, and on to others.  Somebody recommended filling a stocking with the needs of people throughout the season and praying for them.

So we did.

At first, the needs trickled in.  It was manageable, enjoyable, and praying together felt good.  It felt like, maybe, this Christmas could be different from the past few years where I struggled with her self-focus—and mine.

But something happened as we moved farther into the season.  The needs kept growing, and that prayer stocking kept filling up.

Not just little needs.

Words like cancer, death, conflict, grief, and loss…filled it up.  And so many duplicates.  My daughter took it in stride, her child-like faith never wavering, while my faith began swimming in an overwhelming sea of sorrow.

How can I enjoy any sense of peace from the Prince of Peace when so many are hurting? When so many of my friends are in need of a Christmas miracle, is it right to have joy?

Darkness bullied my heart as I went through the motions of joy and peace.  I prayed that somehow I could still see Jesus in the midst of it all.

Maybe you are one of those people waiting for your Christmas miracle.  Maybe you, too, are only hoping you can still find Jesus while you wait because the darkness has obscured your sight.   Probably you’ve begged, perhaps you’ve cried, and most certainly you’ve asked God to hear you.  Hope seems lost as the pains of a fallen world have shown up and removed any peace, or joy in your sorrowful heart.

I pray you will walk with me to the place of Christmas where Divinity and humanity collided in the most beautiful of places.

The people walking in darkness have seen a great light; on those living in the land of the shadow of death a light has dawned…

For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders.

And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.  (Isaiah 9:2,6)

It’s obvious we live in the land of the shadow of death.  This Christmas, you can feel it in your heart.  You see it everywhere you turn in our world.  It’s not hard to find evidence that we have been assailed by the power of the shadow of death. But as one song declares, “earth has no sorrow that Heaven can’t heal.”

And here in the place of Christmas, Heaven indeed responds.

I pray you will walk on to a manger, and see the first Christmas miracle.  That God would care about us in our wretched state and in His great love, not just reach down, but come down.

This Christmas miracle required both God and humanity wrapped together in flesh, here in the form of a baby.   It was the necessary collision to save his people from their sins.  As my husband beautifully taught our church in his Christmas sermon this week, it was a hypostatic union— and just the beginning of Christmas miracles.

Something that could only be dreamed up by Divinity, never thought up by humanity.

But maybe the miracle of a child being born like this…pales in comparison to the miracle that a son would be given by a Father…which pales in comparison to the miracle that he would willingly choose to take upon his own shoulders all the sorrows of earth.

For you, for me, for my daughter…for all of us—just to save us from our sins and this wretched darkness.  I pray we will all see the beauty in this dream.

But perhaps the greatest miracle of all is that in response to words like cancer, death, conflict, grief, and loss; we find words like Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, and Prince of Peace.

And in the midst of our Christmas darkness, we begin to see a great light.  In this land of the shadow of death, Christmas reminds us of the miracle that a Divine light has dawned with answers to the words which cause so much sorrow to our human hearts.

Perhaps this greatest miracle of all suddenly makes all our other Christmas miracles possible.  For when we finally see Jesus in the light of this beautiful picture of glory and grace, all else grows strangely dim.

Christmas, itself, is the grand miracle that reminds us how we can find peace when so many are hurting, and rediscover joy when there are so many needs.  It reminds us that our faith should always be child-like, and not waver in a sea of great sorrow.

For the people walking in darkness have seen a great light; we have seen Jesus.

And I pray that we will see that perhaps this is the grandest Christmas miracle of all.