Why Christmas Still Surprises Me

The Christmas story has always been a little strange if you stop long enough to actually think about it. God could’ve shown up any way He wanted. Thunder. Lightning. Full Marvel-cinematic-universe energy. Instead, He chose to arrive as a small, naked human.

Not even a sturdy one, but as a baby who couldn’t lift His own head. The Creator of everything reduced to someone who needed to be burped. Nothing about that makes sense, and honestly that’s part of what makes me love it.

It’s not just the vulnerability that gets me. It’s the restraint. As Jesus grew up, He could’ve brought down a tree with a word, but He chose to work with wood by hand. He could’ve hovered over every dusty road, but He walked them instead. I don't know about you, but If it were me, I would’ve lasted five minutes before levitating a loaf of bread just to prove I could. He held all that power back and chose to enter the world in the dirt.

Tucked inside all of that is something I’ve mostly missed. Before Jesus ever healed, taught, or saved anyone, two regular people had to decide what they were going to do with a miracle they never asked for.

A scared teenage girl. A nervous soon-to-be dad trying to believe he really did hear from an angel. A makeshift nursery that probably smelled like livestock. Not exactly prime rom-com material.

They were just two people doing their best not to fall apart under something I'm sure felt too big for them. It makes the whole thing feel more human—like God chose the kind of beginning most of us would’ve quietly backed away from. None of it looks holy from the outside but maybe that’s the point.

•••

God was saying something long before Jesus ever spoke a word. Maybe He still is. Maybe He shows up in the places that feel too heavy. Maybe He meets us in the stuff we never planned for. Maybe miracles almost never look like miracles in the moment. Sometimes they look like burdens we’re not sure we can carry yet.

Now that I’m a parent, the whole story hits a little deeper. I remember how fragile my girls were when they were first born. How terrified I was to hold them. How wild it felt to love something that tiny. And for reasons I still don’t fully understand, that’s how God chose to come near. Not with force, but with tenderness. Not in strength, but in dependence.

This Christmas we’ve been reading through Luke as a family. When we got to chapter 2, one little line stopped me. It says:

“Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart.”

There’s something unbelievably human about that. Everyone else saw the same scene: the manger, the noise, the chaos. But Mary slowed down enough to hold it, to sit with it, to let it shape her. She didn’t rush to explain it or clean it up or make it impressive. She treasured it. Maybe because it was all too much. Maybe because it was all too beautiful. Probably both.

That’s what I want to do more of.

On the rare days when I slow down enough to actually see it, I do. I see traces of God in my daughters’ laughter. In the quiet before sunrise. In conversations that gently pull me back toward grace when I didn’t realize how far I’d drifted.

•••

The incarnation isn’t just a story from the past. It’s a reminder that God meets us in real life today. In the mess and the noise. In the exhaustion and the wonder. Not where we wish we were, but where we actually are. The same way He met Mary. The same way He met Joseph. The same way He always has.

So this Christmas, I’m trying to do what Mary did. To slow down enough to actually see what God is doing right in front of me. To pay attention to the quiet things instead of waiting for something dramatic. To remember that God usually comes through the side door, not the spotlight.

The Christmas story started in a place no one expected.

Maybe God is still doing that today.
And honestly, I kind of hope He is.