When we are struggling with difficult emotions, it can feel as though God is not with us or for us at all. This can be especially difficult during the holiday season when we feel as though we should feel “merry and bright.” But the miracle of the Incarnation - the very thing we anticipate throughout Advent and celebrate at Christmas - actually takes on profound significance in those very same hard places. It assures us that Jesus knows the burdens of our hearts and minds not in some distant or abstract sense, but intimately and personally, because He chose to take them upon himself for our sake.