Scripture: Isaiah 7:14
Journal: What does the name Immanuel mean to you right now? How has God been with you recently? How do you long for him to be with you?
Reflection:
I flew to Houston over the weekend to speak at
the Conspire Conference. I stood on a
stage looking out over a few hundred students in grades 6 through 12, telling
them my story of having breast cancer in my 20s.
I talked to them about what
a dark season of life it was for me. The
chemo and radiation were difficult, but on top of that I also lost a good
friend to cancer, I was out of work for seven months, while in my apartment
building’s parking lot, my car was hit by a truck, and my boyfriend broke up
with me. After all of that, I ended up
in the hospital with a raging lung infection and a good chance that I would
die.
On the nights I spent in the
hospital, I’d lie awake and stare at the ceiling and wonder where God was. “Do you see me? Do you love me? Do you care about what’s happening in my
life?” I prayed. “And if you see me and love me and care about
my life, why don’t you come down and make this all go away?”
I told them how I eventually
got better and moved from Connecticut to Oregon to start over. And every Sunday, I’d go to church and pray
for God to find me because I felt so lost.
For six months I prayed that same prayer, and then one Sunday, I
realized that the love of God is higher, longer, wider, and deeper than
anything that happens in this world. And
so not only was I found by God, but never—even for a single second—had I ever
been lost.
Around that time, I also met
a Somali refugee woman and her girls on the train one afternoon. I ended up getting involved with their
family, writing a blog about the adventure of helping them adjust to life in
America, and turning the blog into a book called The Invisible Girls so
I could use the proceeds to start a college fund for the five Somali girls.
I told the students how God
worked everything for good—because I never would’ve been in Portland if my life
on the East Coast hadn’t fallen apart.
And I never would’ve recognized the desperate look in the Somali woman’s
eyes except that it was exactly the same look I’d had in my eyes when I landed
in Portland after losing everything but my life.
God had seemed absent,
hiding in the shadows of painful circumstances.
But it turns out he was with me all the time, and was taking each
horrible, painful detail and working it for good.
At the close of the talk, I
looked at the students and said, “I promise you that at some point in your
life, something will happen that is difficult and painful. Something that you don’t understand, that you
don’t want, that you don’t like. And in
that moment, you’re going to think that God doesn’t love you, that he’s
abandoned you, and forgotten all about you.
“And some of you are there
right now—you’ve lost someone you loved, or a relationship ended badly, or
you’re getting bullied mercilessly. And
maybe it seems so bad that the best way out is to end your life.
“But you are here tonight
just to hear me tell you this: God.
Loves. You.
“He sees you, he cares about
you, and even when you don’t feel him near you, He’s holding onto you every
step of the way. And he’s going to work
this all out for good.”
After I prayed for the
students, I left the stage and the worship band began to play. One of the organizers met me backstage and
led me to a table in the lobby where I was going to do a book signing.
When the kids were dismissed
from the session, they got in line to buy a copy of The Invisible Girls and
get it signed. A small girl, who was
barely four feet tall, waited in the line until it was her turn to come up to
the table. “I don’t have any money to
buy your book,” she said quietly. “But
could you sign my name tag?”
One of the youth leaders ran
and grabbed a permanent marker, and I signed her laminated name tag. Several other kids saw what was going on, and
came over to get their name tags signed, too.
Others came over and asked to take a picture with me.
After twenty minutes,
everyone had come through the line, and the lobby emptied as the kids went to
their next session.
And then an overweight
teenage boy with thick glasses came up to the table clutching a copy of my book
to his chest. He handed it to me to
sign, which I did, and then gave it back to him. Instead of walking away, he stood there in
front of me without saying anything, and tears welled up in his eyes.
Finally, he broke the
silence. “Would it be okay if you hugged
me?” he asked.
I walked around the table
and held my arms out. He wrapped his
arms around my waist and clung to me.
“God sees you, God loves
you, God cares about you,” I whispered.
And I could feel his shoulders shaking as he cried.
During Advent, I’ve been
thinking a lot about Immanuel, God with us.
And I’ve been thinking a lot about how, as his followers, we get to live
out the incarnation for each other. We
get to be the tangible presence of Jesus in this world—a presence that shines
light and makes peace and whispers love.
We get to be his feet that
walk the extra mile; his eyes that look on even the most messy, marginalized
people with love; and his arms that wrap around self-conscious, bullied, lonely
teenage boys.
We get to whisper into the
aching ears of this world, “God sees you.
God loves you. God cares about
you. Yes—even you.” ~Sarah Thebarge,
from Sojourners, December 2013
Prayer
Closing
Prayer: Thank you, O God, that you are indeed with us,
whether we can sense it or not. Thank
you that you see us, that you love us, and that you care about us. Thank you that you are Immanuel. Amen.
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