advent journal: emmanuel

The sun is gone and darkness is settling down here. We're off soon to a potluck dinner at church and then a service together. Later, Ginger, Jay, and I will go to the midnight service of lessons and carols in Duke Chapel (Jay and I are even going to sing in the choir!). This year, I'm deeply grateful for the reality of the Incarnation. These are days in which living as a human being doesn't come easy for me; to think our God chose to join us leaves me feeling less alone, even less depressed.

Emmanuel, God with Us
(Amy Grant, Chris Eaton, Robert Marshall)

We dim the light
We stoke the fire
We breathe the ever-green
Young ones wait
While the old ones make up
Tales of how it used to be

China dolls, candy corn
Painted wooden toys
Treasures found to the wondrous sound
Of carolling the Savior
Born to us on Christmas morn

Emmanuel, God with us
Emmanuel
Emmanuel, God with us
The son of Israel

And still he calls through the night
Beyond the days of old
A voice of peace to the weary ones
Who struggle with the human soul

All of us travelers
Through a gvien time
Who can know what tomorrow holds
But over the horizon
Surely you and I will find

Emmanuel, God with us
Emmanuel
Emmanuel, God with us
The son of Israel

And the years they come
And the years they go
Through we may forget somehow
That the child once born in Bethlehem
Is still among us now

Merry Christmas.

Peace,
Milton