“You see George, you really had a wonderful life. Don’t you see what a mistake it would be to throw it away?”
– Clarence, It’s a Wonderful Life
“Tell us how you met,” the question goes. Depending on the crowd and the occasion, I either say “in college” or launch into a 20-minute saga of heartbreak, coincidence, and divine intervention.
It’s strange to me that in the day-to-day, my husband Nate and I have grown quite comfortable in our relationship. We binge Ted Lasso together, we talk about our days, and we get annoyed at one another.
And yet, there was a time when I couldn’t stop thinking about the miracle of it all. How college heartbreak, intercontinental food poisoning, missed Facebook messages, a mysterious nagging feeling, a well-timed taco, and six years of messy healing led to our marriage. I usually don’t think about it these days—until someone asks me about our story.
It’s funny how stories can lose their meaning, like a word that you’ve said so many times it becomes just a sound. And yet they don’t cease to be any less real or true or miraculous—but we’ve simply lost our ability to see it.
For me, this Christmas season quickly loses its meaning. Between the logistics, travel, family dynamics, social engagements, shifted schedules, shorter days, and fast-approaching deadlines, I lose my way. We grow so familiar with the story of the pregnant virgin, the shepherds in the field, the baby marked by a star, the ancient promise fulfilled, and the angel chorus resounding that we fast-forward.
We tune out during the sermon. We skip the song. We begin thinking of the long to-do list we haven’t tackled. We’ve heard this all before, we think. We know how this will end.
I’ve grown so familiar with the story that I’ve lost my sense of wonder. No wonder I end up feeling like I’ve missed something important.
There is no all-encompassing antonym for wonder. But if I had to describe its opposite, I’d first reach for the words cynicism, skepticism, and apathy. Because wonder is “a feeling of surprise mingled with admiration, caused by something beautiful, unexpected, unfamiliar, or inexplicable.” Wonder is the fulfillment of something we didn’t even dare hope for because we couldn’t imagine it. Wonder connects us to the God of great surprises.
And each year, in the sameness of annual tradition, the six Christmas songs that are covered and played on repeat, the seasonal beverages poured into red cups, the predictable ending of Hallmark movies, the same rhythms of holidays and time together, we have reason to expect to be surprised.
When we slow down and place ourselves in the all-too-familiar story, it defies all logic and reason we use to predict the rest of our lives. It is an utterly beautiful surprise in the midst of the same old, same old. A bright star in what we expected to be a long, dark night. The most beautiful story of “how we met.”
Sometimes we need to be reminded that wonder—not certainty—defines a wonderful life. When we slow down and look closer, we see the God who loves surprises, the same God who is unchanging, trustworthy, constant, and yet never fails to confound our expectations.
Because what king would choose to be born so lowly, sitting in his diapers on a cold winter night? Did Mary marvel at those diapers—those smelly reminders that God had embraced all that it meant to be with His people? Did Joseph worship when Jesus spat up?
Did they see their extraordinary, unglamorous, smelly, stressful, busy, anxiety-filled lives and remember the wonder that was at their fingertips?
Probably not. But maybe more often than not—at least once a year—they remembered the story of how Jesus came, and perhaps that threw in sharp relief the absolute miracle of it all.
We weren’t meant to sit at the end of that story, paying homage by wrapping children in bedsheets and sticking dolls in non-regulation feeding troughs. We were created to sit in the middle of it, with God still with us in our aches and pains, our forgotten blessings, and the most mundane days.
May you have eyes to see wonder as you ponder the story of this season but also the miracles in the mess of your ordinary life. May you see magic in the sticky fingers, the long Zoom meetings, the crowded parking lots, the person sitting next to you, and the email in your inbox at the right time. That they are reminders of a God who is ever-present, working in ways you could not guess even if you tried.
This essay was originally published in Patreeya Thorn’s newsletter. It has been republished here with permission from the author. Read more of her work and subscribe to her newsletter on her website.