Emmanuel

Today, I collapsed.

Not physically, not outwardly.

But on the inside—where the war has been raging for far too long.

I couldn’t fight it anymore.

The voices, the doubt, the panic that wraps around my ribs like a vise—

they screamed louder than the truth I’ve memorized in calmer days.

I know the verses.

I’ve sung the songs, lifted trembling hands,

whispered Your name in the dark.

But today… today I didn’t have the strength to speak.

I just fell.

And I thought maybe You’d be disappointed.

Maybe You’d turn Your face from my weakness.

Maybe You’d walk away, tired of carrying me.

But You didn’t.

You didn’t scold.

You didn’t sigh.

You didn’t keep your distance.

You knelt.

Right there.

On the floor.

Next to me.

In the silence thick with shame.

In the chaos that I couldn’t calm.

In the ache that words couldn’t reach.

You didn’t come to fix me—You came to be with me.

With scarred hands,

You touched my trembling shoulders,

not with judgment,

but with mercy.

You—Man of Sorrows, acquainted with grief,

the One who sweat blood in the garden of agony,

the One who cried out, “My God, why have You forsaken Me?”—

You know this torment.

This suffocating panic.

This hidden war.

You felt it.

And somehow, knowing that You’ve wept too,

that You too have collapsed under the weight of invisible battles—

it makes me lift my eyes again.

You’re not ashamed of my struggle.

You’re not impatient with my pain.

You don’t flinch at my mess.

You enter it.

You redeem it.

You speak peace into it—not from a distance, but from the dirt beside me.

Jesus, when I have nothing left to give,

You give me Yourself.

Not once.

Not occasionally.

Every time.

And so I collapse—

but not in despair.

I collapse into the arms of the One who stays.

Even here,

especially here,

You are Emmanuel.

God with me.

Still.

Always.