In The Message, Eugene Peterson paraphrases the familiar words of the Word becoming flesh this way: "The Word became flesh and blood, and moved into our neighborhood." This is the remarkable truth we celebrate during the Christmas season, a truth we would do well to carry into the new year—that ours is a creating God who continues to act in human life, bringing light into our darkness, hope into our despair, life into our brokenness, love into our fear and suspicion and dread. And perhaps it is only when life is at its toughest, when that light seems most elusive, that faith begins to make sense at all. For it is faith that empowers us, when immersed in darkness, to trust in the presence of the light.