We’ve all been there. That moment when life flips unexpectedly. A phone call you weren’t ready for. An empty chair at the table. A silent prayer in a hospital hallway. Christmas lights shining… but your heart feeling dim.

It’s in those places — the quiet, the chaotic, the in-between — that Jesus often shows up the most. Not just in perfect nativity scenes or joyful songs… but in the ER moments of life. The ones that leave us breathless, broken, or just barely holding on.

That’s the mystery of Christmas. God didn’t wait for the world to be calm before stepping in. He came right into the noise. Into the waiting. Into the pain. Because Emmanuel means “God with us” — not just on our best days, but especially in our hardest ones.