Oh, Christmas. How we love to dress you up, show you off, and make you into something you’re not. We string twinkle lights and garland, pack our schedules with obligatory cheer, and sing “Silent Night” while the rocks cry out and the whole world rages around us.

If something feels “off” or particularly heavy for you this season, you’re not alone. In the midst of that weight, God may be inviting you back to the heart of the Incarnation.

Emmanuel, God with us.

At the risk of sounding Grinchy…I’m going to give it to you straight. The first Christmas wasn’t pretty. It was gritty as can be, full of shared pain, pressure, and scandal. God stepped into the middle of a story no one would have chosen to do what no one else could.

This is good news for people like us—the ones who know grief, loss, abuse, addiction, shame. God didn’t wait for humanity to clean itself up or deck the halls before he came, and he doesn’t expect you to, either.

God is with us—with you—even now. Here are seven truths to help you remember this Christmas.

1. Your mess is holy ground.

The Virgin Mary was no angel in white. She was a scared teenager whose unbridled “yes” to God could have gotten her stoned. Joseph had no perfect plan, he just kept showing up in faith, even when he didn’t understand. Oh, and the birthing suite they found themselves in? It was nothing like our modern-day nativity sets. A filthy manger in a borrowed barn, no doubt reeking of pure survival. God took one look at that mess and made it his home.

So if your holiday season feels more like hell on earth than a Hallmark movie; if you’re walking in the long shadow of something you can’t yet name, know this: God will meet you in the mess. He doesn’t shy away from chaos. He’s born into it.

Emmanuel, God with us in the mess.

“But the angel reassured them, saying, ‘Don’t be afraid, for I have come to bring you good news—the most joyous news the world has ever heard! And it is for everyone everywhere!'”

Luke 2:10 TPT

2. Jesus’ first breath was a cry.

The Messiah’s first sound in this world wasn’t a hymn. It was a scream. A tiny, innocent baby breathing in the atmosphere of a violent, occupied land. God entered our story by way of birth trauma. He could have come in power, but he chose humility so he could experience the same vulnerability as the ones he came to save.

If you’ve ever tried to hide your pain to honor God, Christmas begs otherwise. Your tears don’t threaten his glory, they reflect it. Jesus wept. Jesus bled. Jesus died—for you. And he knows what it’s like to be fully, deeply, and painfully human.

Emmanuel, God with us when we cry.

“And so the Living Expression became a man and lived  among us! We gazed upon his glory…overflowing with tender mercy and truth.”

John 1:14 TPT

3. Your body is not the enemy.

If you grew up in church, chances are you’ve been told that your body—your desires, your sensations, your physique, your scars, your very flesh—is the problem. Trauma doubles down on that lie until we can no longer feel comfortable in our own skin.

Christmas tells a different story. God put on flesh—skin and muscle, bone and blood. He was born of a woman’s body and swaddled by human hands. Your body isn’t a curse; it’s the sacred place where God chooses to dwell, you in him and he in you. The incarnation isn’t just a theology lesson. It’s a mystery of union. It’s God saying, I want every part of you, body, mind, and spirit.

Emmanuel, God with us in the flesh.

“Have you forgotten that your body is now the sacred temple of the Spirit of Holiness, who lives in you? You don’t belong to yourself.”

1 Corinthians 6:19 TPT

4. Shame is not your story.

Nearly every aspect of the first Christmas had potential for humiliation. A pregnant virgin. A fiancé who almost bailed. A brand-new family without a room reservation, and a king who wanted the baby dead. That’s the story the angels sang about. That’s the story heaven celebrated.

Shame tried to write the story, but the author and perfector of our faith rewrote it in victory. If shame is woven into the narrative of your own life, know this: Every good story has an all-is-lost moment. Why? Because it makes redemption a more precious gift. Even now, God is rewriting your story from the inside out, the same way he did for Mary, Joseph, and every other outcast in Bethlehem.

Emmanuel, God with us in our stories. 

“To give them a beautiful bouquet in the place of ashes, the oil of bliss instead of tears, and the mantle of joyous praise instead of the spirit of heaviness.”

Isaiah 61:3 TPT

5. The light entered the darkness.

In Christian circles, we love to talk about the light winning over darkness. And it does. But John 1 says, “This light never fails to shine through darkness — Light that  darkness could not overcome” (emphasis mine). Through the darkness. Not over it. Not around it. In it. You don’t have to escape your darkness to find Jesus. But you may need to stop pretending the dark isn’t there.

That’s where God shows up. In the silence of a slammed door. In the hospital waiting room. In the flashback, the hope deferred, in the pain of what might have been. He meets you there, not to judge, fix, or shame you, but to be with you. That’s what Emmanuel means: God with us. No distance, no separation. You are one with God, in Christ, by the power of the Holy Spirit, and his light shines in your darkness.

Emmanuel, God with us in the dark.

“Listen! A virgin will be pregnant, she will give birth to a Son, and he will be known as ‘Emmanuel,’ which means in Hebrew, ‘God became one of us.'”

Matthew 1:23 TPT

“But those who entwine their hearts with YAHWEH will experience divine strength. They will rise up on soaring wings and fly like eagles.”

Isaiah 40:31 TPT

6. You don’t have to be healed to be held.

Logic tells us that faith means strength, that healing means closure. But that’s not how Jesus meets people. The bleeding woman was still bleeding out. The demon-possessed man still trembling. The grieving sisters before their dead brother walks out of the tomb. They were not okay. And that was okay with Jesus. He met them in their disease and dis-ease, and gave them the gift of himself.

The same is true for you today. God doesn’t need you healed and whole before he comes close. This is the heart of the Incarnation—the sacred, transformative, healing presence of God in the flesh, whose Spirit now lives in you.

Emmanuel, God with us in our healing.  

“He heals the wounds of every shattered heart.”

Psalm 147:3 TPT

7. The good news is still for the broken.

Don’t believe the lies: Christmas has never been about perfection. It was messy from the get-go. God plunged straight into the wreckage of our humanity to reconcile the whole world to himself.        

That’s the gospel trauma survivors can trust: Not that pain disappears, but that love goes deeper into the ache, into the truth, into the places you’ve been trying to hide. Even now, Emmanuel is reclaiming the names shame gave you and telling a truer story.

This is the scandal of Christmas: You don’t have to fake it. You don’t have to feel it. And you don’t have to hide. God already knows, and he chooses you still. So let the story be what it is – one of true grit and true grace, for you, for me, and for us all.

Emmanuel, God with us, still.

“His name will be: the Wonderful One, the Extraordinary Strategist, the Mighty God, the Father of Eternity, the Prince of Peace!”

Isaiah 9:6 TPT

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