Almost There

Michael W. Smith addresses this one directly to Mary, in the final stretch of pregnancy rather than at the manger itself: "Mary, full of innocence, carrying the Holy prince, you're almost there, you're almost there." The song lives entirely in the waiting, not the arrival.

"A lonely road, a willing heart, pray for strength to do your part" names the specific difficulty of the assignment without romanticizing it, and "trust the Father to provide, bread of heaven prophesied" keeps pointing forward to promises not yet delivered on.

Luke's account of Mary's response to the angel — "let it be to me according to your word" — sits behind the song's picture of a "willing heart," and Isaiah's naming of the coming child as Immanuel gives the repeated closing phrase, "the answered prayer, Emmanuel," its exact title. "Where death will die and life begins" pushes the song's ending past the birth itself, toward the larger story that birth was only the beginning of.