Psalm 119:151-152
But you are near, O Lord,
    and all your commandments are true.
Long have I known from your testimonies
    that you have founded them forever.


This Christmas season I am reveling in the nearness of God. God’s constant presence. God’s insistence on being with us since the beginning of time – His walking with Adam in the cool of the day, choosing Noah to build the ark, calling Abram out of Ur and making covenant with him and his descendants. Our Creator established covenants and altars to give us, His image-bearers, access to draw near and call upon their Creator. God also welcomes us to be with Him.

Though I want so desperately to respond to my Lord’s invitation with consistency and enthusiasm, I have a hard time allowing myself to be. The to-do list is too long, there are too many distractions, too much fear, too many concerns to manage and problems to fix – things on the verge of falling apart that I feel obligated to hold together. Still, God is near, here, now. My Father reminds me that He is holding me together, and, if I let go of the other stuff, He will hold those too (Colossians 1:17). He is our hope now for when the hard things we hold are not changing or maybe getting even harder.

Thankfully Christ, God donning flesh, was born and lived, teaching us how to be: how to be in solitude, how to be with God – present, honest, open, certain He was in need of all the Father had to offer; reverent, knowing the messiness of life on earth and the intensity felt within Himself (e.g. these things that we carry in our hands and hold in our souls) are welcome with Him in the presence of the Almighty; and how to be with others – those mourning and celebrating, in need and in abundance, children and aged, sick and whole. I do not see in Jesus’s life the daily, hourly, moment-to-moment urgency I often feel inside. I am grateful! What confirmation and relief this brings to us! We are not supposed to live this way. There is peace.

“Peace I leave with you; My [own] peace I now give and bequeath to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Do not let your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid. [Stop allowing yourselves to be agitated and disturbed; and do not permit yourselves to be fearful and intimidated and cowardly and unsettled.]” - John 14:27 (AMP)

In seasons when solitude eludes me and I don’t feel permitted to be still (no matter how much I actually need it), the Holy Spirit catches me chopping veggies, folding laundry, “I am here. I have been here. Do you not see?” In that moment I am reminded of answered prayer, promises in Scripture, needs met that I did not express, times I operated in knowledge I did not have before that instant and certainly did not come to of my own accord, times when the doorbell rang when I am barely holding on and someone who loves me was on my porch, peace and joy in chaotic parenting moments, and comfort and advocacy when the darkness closed in and profound grief seemed to overtake me. Our God, Emmanuel, is here, with us indeed!! Do you not see?

—Anyah E. R. White