Peace On Earth

This Christmas, I sat across from Jesus. Knees-to-knees, bent with foreheads touching. I think His arm is lifted and cups the base of my neck. I think my eyes are closed in relief.

I wrestle with how to communicate what this God-man has done for me.

And I think of Him, messy-born among livestock, and how every time I hold a newborn the fragility sends chills through my arms and what a strange sensation that would be if holding God. Was He fragile?

In His humanity, I think yes. Fragile like us. Fragile with us; yet, God with us. Immanuel.

And if holding Him as a newborn would yield the same fragile-chills, then holding him as Savior could yield searing peace. Shooting up my arms and through my soul like fireworks.

Blazing through the sky in angel-chorus, "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to men on whom His favor rests." 

Exploding in the heart of shepherd, of wisemen, of Simeon & Anna. The first to recognize the man-child as God-man.

It is peace He has brought me. Not always a cessation of the storm but a shelter during it. Most of all peace from myself. Peace that silences my own selfishness, entitlement, & need to be the most intelligent, most beautiful, most sought after.

Peace that fills all the ache & empty in a way that no amount of self-help or self-righteousness or even believing in myself could. I know myself and apart from Christ, I am done.


But now it is no longer me, alone, I. It is now Him, together, God With Me. 


And the peace flows in, and all is rest.