Tension - God With Us

**Tension (noun):**

A state of being pulled between two opposing forces, emotions, or realities at the same time.

It often creates a feeling of strain, pressure, or discomfort because both sides feel true, significant, or demanding.

Can you relate? Have you ever encountered a season of life that felt like this definition?

Today feels a bit like that for me, and I thought I would share a few thoughts, being that potentially this may be relevant to any and all.

I went for my MRI this past week and the technician asked me what kind of music I wanted to listen to (thank God for music in an MRI tunnel)… I thought about it for a split second and said “Christmas music.” It felt like a tension—the heaviness of the health journey we are currently walking and the lightness of “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree” all coupled into one moment.

Is there ever a good time to be battling cancer? No, but really… Christmas?

It is the calendar reminders that pop up simultaneously: “chemo days / Christmas parties”—both scheduled for December 8th. Or the complicated thought process of knowing when “side-effect days” will be hard, and trying to schedule Christmas festivities that account for this. Or maybe a little more relevant is the ever true and ever real emotional pull between the gravity of the diagnosis, the prognosis and the path before us coupled with the joy and excitement of the season at hand.

Logistical though this may be, it opens a deeper recognition that life is a tension.

So let’s talk about the co-existence of fear and peace, of worry and rest, grief and joy, and whatever else may be your tension today.

Maybe we start by saying the name Emmanuel: “God with Us”.

Christmas is the season where we celebrate God with us. Not “God with us when life is easy.” Not “God with us once the cancer is gone.” Not “God with us after the results are good.” or when the pain disappears.

Just… God with us. Right here. Right now.

In the MRI tunnel and the Christmas party.

In the infusion chair and in the wrapping presents.

In the waiting room and decorating the house.

In the calendar chaos of kids, appointments, and holiday plans.

In the long nights when fear wants to creep near.

In the quiet moments when sadness and joy compete for priority.

His presence doesn’t erase the tension—but it changes the experience of it.

Fear and peace can sit in the same room, but peace gets the louder voice, because of the presence of the Prince of Peace (another one of HIS names that is so life giving)

Worry may show up uninvited, but rest is the gift God keeps offering.

This is the mystery of Emmanuel:

Difficulty is guaranteed, but so is His presence.

And peace is not the absence of struggle; it is the presence of God within it. (Psalms 23:4)

The tension I feel right now—the one between breast cancer and Christmas, between sorrow and celebration, between the unknown and the unshakeable—is becoming a reminder. Not of what is missing, but of who is here, and the privilege of that truth.

Maybe that is the gift of this particular December.

Maybe the tension isn’t something to escape, but something holy—

a space where God is teaching me the depth of His nearness,

the weight of His love,

the steadiness of His peace.

So if you find yourself in a season where two realities are pulling at you—

grief and joy, fear and faith, exhaustion and expectation—

you’re not failing. You’re human.

And you’re not alone.

This is exactly the place Emmanuel comes to meet us.

Not at the end of the tension,

but right in the middle of it.

**God with us.**

In the beauty and the battle.

In the ache and the wonder.

In the tension… and in the peace that holds us there.

— **Erin Murray 12/07/2025**