Maybe next year will be different, I thought as one difficult season came to a close.

Maybe next year I wouldn't have to fight so hard or struggle so much.

Maybe next year I wouldn't be so sick and could spend more time with my family.

Maybe next year I would meet the man God has for me instead of listening to the lies that I would always be alone.

Maybe next year I would finally have victory over depression instead of feeling defeated.

Maybe next year the financial strain would ease.

Maybe next year I wouldn't have to say goodbye to someone I loved.

It is easy, after a hard season, to focus only on the pain behind us. Many hardships filled the past year—sickness, financial strain, loss, and long periods of waiting when I wanted to move forward. I fought battles I never imagined I would face. Yet in those same battles, God gave me strength I never knew I had.

It is tempting to say "good riddance" to a difficult year and hope a new one will fix everything. But we do not know what God is doing while we are in the middle of the struggle.

I once heard an evangelist share about a year of hardship he and his wife endured. At the time, it sounded only sad. Later, he realized God had been cultivating their faith. The struggles were not wasted — they were preparation. God was refining them as gold, preparing them for a work they could not yet see.

We often ask, "What good can come from this?" because we cannot see God's plan. Yet God uses hard seasons to make us more like Christ.

If we desire to grow spiritually, there will be times we do not understand.

Job experienced this confusion. He asked God questions, not because he had done wrong, but because he was hurting. Scripture reminds us:

"Although affliction cometh not forth of the dust, neither doth trouble spring out of the ground;

Yet man is born unto trouble, as the sparks fly upward.

I would seek unto God, and unto God would I commit my cause:

Which doeth great things and unsearchable; marvellous things without number."

(Job 5:6–9)

Life is hard. We are not promised an easy path, but we are promised a faithful God — One who said He would never leave nor forsake us. Sometimes the struggle itself is part of His work in us so that we can later help someone else walking the same road.

During my own season of spiritual battle, I felt overwhelmed and weak. Circumstances seemed bigger than me, but I was reminded that God is bigger than anything I face. Even when finances were uncertain and work was inconsistent, God still provided what we needed. In the middle of the desert, He was still faithful.

So instead of saying, "Maybe next year will be different," perhaps our prayer should be,

"Lord, help me trust You in this season and make me a light to someone else."

There may be someone God places in your life who is hurting in the same way you once did. Because you have walked through the valley with Christ, you will know how to point them to hope.

"For He Himself has said, 'I will never leave you nor forsake you'" (Hebrews 13:5.)

Rather than wishing away the hard seasons, we can trust that God is working even there — in the good, the bad, and the painful — shaping us into people who reflect His faithfulness.

TODAY'S DEVOTIONAL WAS WRITTEN BY REBBECCA HORNER.