This year came in relentlessly swinging, like a heavyweight boxer fighting for a championship title. It knocked me upside down and kept me there, blood rushing to my head as the punches kept coming. It wasn’t the blows themselves that caused the most damage. It was the disorientation in the wake, when my world was toppled and I struggled to remember which way was up.

Wait a minute… This CAN NOT be happening. This is NOT what I expected life to turn out like. I believed what God spoke over my life and moved towards that revelation with faith and trust—This is NOT the answer I’ve prayed for, nor is it the ending I’ve endured years of hurt to behold. Has God had ANY say at all in how this is panning out? It looks a whole lot like the devil’s handiwork to me!

Anyone who can find their way around the Bible knows the best of us aren’t exempt from pain, suffering and disappointment. It’s a prerequisite of the human experience. Until this year, I subconsciously believed that if you wholeheartedly follow God on a particular matter—listen to His voice, earnestly seek His guidance, repent for your mistakes and hang on to the truth by faith—it will end well. By “well” I mean the way you’re believing for it to end— a “happily ever after” ushered in on the coattails of prayer and obedience to His nudging.

My experience taught me otherwise as I had to let go of a promise I clutched with white knuckles: A promise that had become an idol of my own understanding and the future I’d envisioned God to bring forth. There is much pain in laying that idol down and I toiled over letting it go. I understood that the fork in the road I was on offered no way out—only a painstaking process through.

The valley of the shadow of death, where I’d be blinded by darkness, but walking with the Light of life. I had to decide His light would be enough, when the questions in the darkness knocked me around and rang my bell.

God never overrides a person’s freewill, nor does He have to, to remain faithful to those seeking Him with their whole heart.

Regardless of our circumstances and the choices of those around us, God is working in us, for us and through us if we let go of everything else and hang on to Him.

That’s part of the deeper truth I’ve experienced this year; a promise hinging on the Baby from the manger whom we just celebrated. While I grappled with life’s unexpected blows, making choices I never thought I’d have to make and letting go in ways I never thought I’d have to, this Baby laid the life-altering backdrop of a truth that changes everything: God is with us. He is with us in the disappointment, in the messiness, in the heartbreak and in the broken dreams. To someone long-harassed by the fear of abandonment, this is a promise that soaked into the corners of my life like a healing balm, ushering in peace and joy where I’ve felt most alone and rejected. Not unlike Mary, who ushered God incarnate to earth in a stable ill-fitting for the King of kings.

The truth is, we don’t need our “happily ever after” to look the way we think it should when we have Emmanuel, God with us. We don’t need to “win” against the brutal blows of life when God is in the corner of the ring, beckoning us to forfeit the fight, since He’s already won the greater victory. Our job is to keep our eyes locked on Him as He reveals the next move, undistracted by what the thieves are threatening to kill, steal and destroy.

When we understand that it is GOD (not us!) who has the power to redeem all things surrendered, we can let go and choose trust, no matter how disoriented we are by the darkness in the valley.

We aren’t trusting in an outcome— we are trusting in a Person. We are fastened to the hope tucked within the heart of the Babe wrapped in swaddling clothes; of God wrapped in flesh. A God who would experience for Himself, to full measure, the blows life can dish out. A high priest who understands.

We can’t control our circumstances or the people around us, but we can always choose where we will place our trust. We can always choose to take the next step of faith God reveals to us and as we do, we make room for more of Heaven in the messy mangers of our own lives.

Life knocked me upside down with what felt like a fatal blow this year. However, Christmas came and reminded me that it’s Emmanuel who is putting me right side up again.

So, when life comes at you swinging, remember Who is in your corner: God with us.

Does the truth of God with you impact how you experience life’s messiest seasons? I’d love to hear from you. Please comment below!