This song’s lyrics are from one of the ‘O Antiphons’, beautiful liturgical readings spoken in the last days leading up to Christmas. Each one declares an attribute of God and then invites him to come (as I recently learned from Jeff).
As I walked toward Christmas this year, life never being busier than it is now with four kids, two big extended families, and all that entails, I have also never felt so much joy in the Christmas season as I did this year. Perhaps the more I experience of life’s trials makes me that much more thankful for all the small things. The small provisions. A conversation saturated with the Holy Spirit. A friend showing up with a smile at the door. Getting snowed in at my Dad’s house. Watching my son beam after delivering cookies. And every crack of time between making food, putting kids to bed, doing laundry, cleaning up, seeing family, felt punctuated with creative energy in celebration of Emmanuel: God with us. The anticipation of this moment in the year that means so much to us, God getting right down on our level, in our dirt, and dwelling with us.
So the music to this song was written in a surprise spare evening hour when the house was quiet (for a brief time). This print was carved during my kids’ bath time over four days while I sat in the bathroom. That is my raw, real life, filled with thankfulness for our God and all that he did and is doing.
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