How To Be Seen This Christmas Week

Last year I enjoying sharing a little something with you each day of Christmas week. Maybe I’ll do the same this year…

It is Christmas, that supposedly “most wonderful time of the year.” But there are things that do not feel “most wonderful.” Things we would prefer to be different. Myself, I long to share this week with someone who not only sees me, but who sees me.

Whether single or married, we all share this longing. No matter how well we are known by those around us, we still ache because we know that we are not fully known or fully seen. For me, this ache is more pronounced at Christmas.

I See You

As the praise team led worship for Sunday’s service, I sensed God’s whisper, “I see you.” These words were not expressed in some threatening and foreboding celestial voice. Rather they were a comforting reminder that I was being personally seen and known, even though I was only one of many in the crowd around me. (This was not the first time I’ve heard God whisper, “I see you.”)

“I see you” reveals God’s desire for us. God looked and saw us hopelessly isolated from the intimacy he desired with us. He saw that our separation was a chasm stretching further than any canyon he ever created, needing a bridge greater than man could ever engineer.

And so God named Jesus with the name that responds to our need, Emmanuel – God with us. How appropriate that we experience our need to be seen, to be fully known, as we celebrate the birth of Jesus who came to be with us, to fully know us. He is the one who can perfectly reassure us, “I see you.”