When Marissa was just a small, freckled thing, her bed was densely populated with stuffed toys and chubby dolls. Let’s just say there was nothing random about the way they were arranged. Part of our nightly tucking-in ritual was positioning each one just so. Surrounded by her “babies,” all of them looking at her, Missy could finally let her fringe of auburn eyelashes fall closed.

I’m not convinced we ever outgrow our longing for comfort.

When was the last time I ventured to town for a day of running errands without a sweet, steaming chai latte within arm’s reach? And an audiobook playing . . . or just the right music to suit my mood?

We are all comfort-seeking missiles, intersecting with each other on the surface of a great spinning rock. And it’s a weary world. Growing wearier by the day.

We draw our breaths amid the tension of the now and the not yet. Our Comforter is already here—Immanuel, God with us. But we aren’t yet in a place of total comfort.

Because we have work to do here.

In the days leading up to Christmas, we ponder this: For our sake Jesus condescended to come to this wearying place. He surrendered his comfort—home, family, rights, dignity . . . his very life—so he could be, among other things, our great Comforter.

So we’d know comfort in our fear.

Comfort in sickness.

Comfort in a season of unknowns.

Even in a pandemic.

This year I’ve had to keep rearranging things—my time, my focus, my thought life—so my eyes are always on Jesus. And I’ve never been so comforted. Here’s why.

I can see that his eyes are always on me.

He’s attentive and accessible. And he sends others too, populating our lives with his created beings (in all shapes and sizes, like Marissa’s menagerie), arranging them just so, to bring us his comfort.

Even today, I’m deeply comforted knowing friends and family are praying over some unnerving lab results I received.

Jesus is always arranging a place where our souls can rest.

But we miss it sometimes, or at least I do. So we seek it on our own. Sometimes comfort-seeking looks like . . .

Filling my day with small things to avoid doing the hard thing.

Dodging the uncomfortable conversation.

Gravitating toward people who look and think like me.

Ruminating over how I think things should be.

Focusing on my next meal or next time of rest instead of being fully in the now, mindful of the Spirit’s murmurings.

Meanwhile each teeny dot on the timeline of my earthly life drips with possibility. Am I attentive to it? Has he placed me in a position to comfort another, this very moment?

Are the arms of the angel my own?

While Jesus is a lot of things to me, I especially love that he’s my great tucker-in-er. I love him for making me lie down in green pastures. But we are the sent ones, comforted ourselves so we can bring comfort to a world that needs it more than ever.

We ARE the comfort we want to see in the world.

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