WOO HOO! As a NSW school teacher in a government school, I am now officially on holidays.

Thank. You. Jesus.

I don’t even know how I made it to the end. And how I even ticked off everything on my list that I wanted to get done before the end of term. I know where I was at in my ‘to-do’ list last week and truly didn’t think I’d get there. I don’t even remember what happened (it’s been that bad, clearly), but somehow I made it.

Sure, I’ve got a bundle of things I need to do in January, before term goes back; but those things were always on the list for January. I just got done what needed to be done, now.

I can’t believe it. It’s a Christmas miracle.

He will carry us and sustain us. That’s what The Bible says. When we don’t know how we’re going to make it, God is right there alongside us and carrying us through.

It’s those little daily graces that he gives us. When we don’t think we’ll have the energy to do all the shopping we need to do, get presents wrapped for colleagues, go out for a post-work end of year social and have a faculty breakfast… oh, and yeah, like… do my job…

Yet, somehow he enables us to get through.

It’s Emmanuel. It’s God with us. It’s God’s love shown to us in the little personal ways and also the larger ways: the micro and the macro.

I have come so that you might have life and have it to the full.

The Bible says that too, although I don’t think it’s talking about a full schedule. I think it’s talking about the most complete life we could ever live:

For God so loved the world that he gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.

That’s love. That’s macro love.

It’s also the truest expression of Emmanuel that we could get: God in the flesh.

God being with me and helping me in my hectic schedule is an example of Emmanuel, personally. God does that because he cares about me personally and knows my needs.

Yet, Emmanuel is far bigger than that. These ‘mini’ or personal experiences of God’s love are great and most necessary, but I don’t want to be focussed on the “ticks in my boxes” at Christmas. I want to be considering God’s love displayed on a macro, global scale to all of humanity, when he sent his Son at Christmas time.

God become man; God in the flesh. It’s a Christmas miracle.

Yours in focusing on the miracle,

Alison