Last week, I received a truly moving letter. A sister with whom I had wept, awakened, prayed, and counseled for years in pursuit of full restoration of life wrote to me: “I am truly happy.” Holding that letter to my heart, overwhelmed with gratitude and the mighty power of love, I could not help but lift my eyes to heaven and cry out, “Ah, the Lord lives!”

About six years ago, at the request of a church member to help a struggling neighbor, I first visited her home. At first sight, she seemed gentle and kind-hearted, yet she was a pitiful woman whose eardrum had been ruptured from abuse and beatings by her live-in partner and sister-in-law. Every conversation was punctuated by sighs and tears rising from the depths of her heart, leaving me deeply unsettled. She had two children: her eldest daughter was of mixed race, and her younger child was by her current husband. Her in-laws, displeased with a daughter-in-law who had brought a mixed-race child, constantly pressured her to leave. Even her husband, who once embraced her with love, had changed into someone else, wasting his days in alcohol and marijuana. She could endure her own abuse, but the hatred directed toward her daughter was unbearable.

From her first marriage to an American, she had suffered abuse and contempt. She recalled collapsing from malnutrition, nearly dying. Pregnant with her first child, she had to fill her hungry stomach with green tomatoes from the backyard. Longing for kimchi, she mixed cabbage with red pepper flakes meant for pizza. Carrying her newborn daughter, she once fled through the snow, nearly freezing to death, until a woman rescued her. Meeting her fellow countrymen, she hoped never again to face such contempt and violence. She even bore a son, yet her second husband also began to despise her.

I began visiting her weekly for Bible study, urging her that only in Christ could she stand and find hope. At times, I accompanied her to family court to seek protection from her husband’s daily violence and destruction, or to welfare offices for support. Yet she loved her husband. Despite repeated separations, she could not refuse him when he returned.

Last summer, during another separation, she visited her parents in Korea and poured out her life story. Her parents, who had lived kindly and uprightly all their lives, wished to meet their son-in-law. They invited him to Korea, welcomed him warmly, treated him with genuine love, and even arranged a proper wedding ceremony.

Her husband, who had never known the satisfaction of parental love, began to soften like spring mist. He sincerely repented of his wrongs and resolved to live a new life. Now, she wrote, they live happily. She described her husband returning from work with a bouquet of roses for her, his trustworthy and loving presence filling her with joy: “Now I feel I can smile as brightly as anyone else.” She added her deep gratitude for the help that had sustained her through sorrow, and I felt ashamed.

For though God had His best plan, I had dared to label her husband as a hopeless, discarded man. Yet God rescued a life sinking in despair and revealed the power of His love to the world.

Emmanuel, God with us! The God for whom nothing is impossible, who comes into despair and pain with light of hope and healing—this Advent arrives to us with joy.

“God of Emmanuel! Come quickly! Come into our pain and despair, our suffering and bondage—come to us!”