Wonderly Christmas 2024

Can you believe we have all survived another year? I am thoroughly convinced the world we live in is one crazy place and it can be so easy to get caught up in drama around the world and at home… oy vey!! How do we manage as an individual between the internal and external wars and diverse political upheaval! I’m so thankful I don’t own a television that blasts me with negative content all day long, but instead, I choose to live a very simple life and welcome, love, truth, joy, and positivity.

2024… May I never take another CHRISTMAS for granted and it is my hope that we all stop and realize the gift of TODAY. I often take in a deep breath and immediately give thanks to God that my lungs work and I am still here. Like with anything in life, experience is one of our greatest teachers. In my mind, I can literally go back to the day where I was tethered to an oxygen hose and couldn’t breathe in deeply enough to sing out my favorite song, Gratitude, by Brandon Lake for more than a couple words. And now look at me! Doing all the things…Mountain biking, hiking, Wilderness camping and continuing to help my hubby build out our WonderVan with a finish date sometime in 2025!

I often explain my last two years as being the recipient of a modern day miracle. I don’t say that lightly, but truly understand the gift I’ve been given. When my doctors tell me that only 1% of people with my diagnosis are doing as well as I am, I realize that I still have work to do here! My ability to be even more bold (if that’s even possible) about the necessity and urgency I feel to share the only thing worth talking about, you guessed it…Jesus, Yeshua, the Jewish Messiah!!!

You see, I am keenly aware of the fact that I may not be here next Christmas to share this ever again with those I love most. That’s when a cancer diagnosis is a gift…I KNOW from experience that nothing is guaranteed.. not tomorrow, not our health, not our next breath! My chest gets tight and my eyes well up with tears as I consider a legacy I’m called to leave. It is my prayer that God gives me the right words to share, and that you, the reader, are in an open head and heart space to quietly consider these words… again…and again!

It is so easy to get caught up in the minutia of life, the stresses of today, the assumption that tomorrow will come, yet is that genuinely living life to the fullest? I choose to keep an eternal perspective. It’s the other side of life here on earth that I’m looking most forward to and it’s there I hope to spend with you and our Maker for eternity. This time is brief, like a blink of an eye. I want to use it wisely and intentionally. 

At Christmas I’m reminded of all the evidence and all the kept promises and all the fulfilled prophecies that have convinced me that faith in Jesus is worth dying for, it’s worth being rejected over, it’s worth my everything. Jesus fulfilled over 324 prophecies relating to the Jewish Messiah foretold in Scriptures!! That’s literally an impossibility unless they were true! There’s one prophecy I included on the few hand painted Christmas cards I made this year…Isaiah 7:14. Here are a few I painted. 

So as I come to a close, it is my fervent prayer that you have read this Christmas letter with different ears this year. I hope you clicked on both links above and took time to ponder them. And I hope that the gift of my card sent to you will be a reminder today and tomorrow of the gift we all share.

Christ in me rejoices that you consider living your life with a simple faith in an ostentatious act by the One who made us. 

Merry Christmas and you are loved. 

Tricia Wonderly