And as a sign that God was with them, Isaiah spoke of a sign, a symbol of hope, an assurance of God’s promise that God is always with us, even when things are awful or scary. That sign, that symbol, was the birth of a child. Someone was pregnant, and with the birth of her child, hope would come anew into the world. 

When it rains, it pours.  Last week, my wife Felida was looking on her Facebook page when she saw that her cousins in the Philippines were stranded on the second floor of their home during a terrible flood.  They had small children with them and were using Facebook to call for help.  Nobody could get to them, but thankfully the waters receded by the next day and they were okay. Last week, three separate typhoons hit the Philippines in succession, and so the Manilla area flooded.  This is nothing new, just as hurricanes are nothing new on the East Coast and Gulf Coast of the United States.  In fact, Filipino homes used to be built on stilts so that they could stay above water when the floodwaters came.  They aren’t built that way anymore, so residents know to just keep their heads above water and survive.