God could have chosen to call Jesus anything, but there's something so personal about Immanuel meaning “God with us.” God is in every way “other” than us, and yet He chose to rescue us in the most intimate way. He is God with us, but often people believe the lie that He doesn’t care about our pain when he actually showed up to fix it.

He's the God who willingly entered into our messy world, His arrival announced by the sound of newborn cries echoing inside a smelly barn.

He's the God who was present in our pain, and fixed it with the touch of His hands and the spit of His mouth.

He's the God who saw into the souls of the people society cast aside and said, “you belong to me.”

He's the God who came to quietly serve and love, not loudly assert His God-status authority upon arrival.

He’s the God who dwelled among us until it was His appointed time to die for us. I don't think any human writer ever would have thought this kind of story up.

We are in the season of Advent, of waiting for Christmas, the celebration of the long-prophesied birth of the Messiah, Jesus Christ, the Savior of the world. Now that we're on the other side celebrating His birth and victory on the cross, we still wait for Him to return again to make all things right, just like He originally made it in the Garden.

We wait. We wait for the festivities on Christmas day and we wait on God with unanswered prayers, unresolved conflicts and unknown futures. We feel the tension of the already here/not yet promises in Jesus. We wait and we cling to our only hope, Immanuel, God with us.

During the Christmas season, we feel the absence of loved ones who’ve passed and struggles currently weighing on us, juxtaposed next to the blaring sound track of Jingle Bell Rock. As we get older, our whimsical childhood Christmas memories are jaded by the realities of life, but this should push our hearts to worship Jesus more. Lasting joy cannot come from attaining a magical Christmas experience or even a pain free life, but only by trusting in Christ alone.

I'm blown away that we get to know a God who was and is "God with us." He didn’t leave us alone in our sin, He came to personally pay for it. He isn’t aloof when we’re hurting either, “El Roi” means, “the God who sees me.”

My prayer is that this year we might yearn for His presence in our brokenness more than we yearn for attaining happiness, all while holding fast to the Hope that He's not finished working yet. One day He promises to come back to be with us and make it all right again. Come Lord Jesus, come!

But until then, there is beauty in the waiting, because it's in that place, where the silence is a little too loud, that only Jesus can be magnified. As we sit at His feet and wait, He will produce in our hearts an overflow of love, joy, peace, and worship of King Jesus, the God who is with us.

Laura DiLeonardi

Laura DiLeonardi is the founder of Agape Moms, a national network of missional communities for mothers that launched in 2016. Since early 2022, she’s served as the Director of Community at The Journey Church in Lebanon, TN where she oversees Life Groups, the Women’s Ministry and where she planted her third Agape Moms chapter. Laura is a writer, speaker and mobilizer for women of all ages to live on mission for Jesus in their everyday lives. She is married to her Moody Bible Institute sweetheart, Matt since 2009 and they have three kids, Jack, Selah and Lucy, and two fur babies, Bear and Lady. In her free time she enjoys hiking with the family, running, and good conversation over a cup of coffee. Laura's passion is seeing lives continually transformed by the gospel of Jesus Christ.