There I was. Sitting at the kitchen table in my jammies, a bowl of oatmeal sitting in front of me. As my teeth crushed the first fresh blueberry, I thought, “picking fresh blueberries for my oatmeal is one of my favorite things to do.” Immediately following that thought, the famous song lyric “these are a few of my favorite things” began whirring through my mind. It will now be an ear worm for anyone who has seen the movie “The Sound of Music”. You are welcome. I hope it brings a bit of happiness to your day whenever you find it skipping through your brain or humming it.
So, what are a few of my favorite things? Down days due to my van (Grammi’s truck I like to call it) being in the shop. Seems I need a new tie rod due to too much motion or something like that. Hopefully that fixes the rattling that has been progressively worsening. I may take a mid afternoon snooze, I may try to work on a photo album. I will most likely be answering calls from our contractor to answer a few questions.
Sitting on the back porch, under the warm yellow lights on our pergola on a warm summer’s evening with friends. After a birthday dinner out the other night, our friends came back to our house for ice cream sundays. We visited as the evening light waned, and enjoyed a game of Sequence afterwards. It’s usually guys versus girls. We “let” them win the first set, a birthday gift, then won the second, they the third.
First thing in the morning when the grandkids wake up. Since they are still groggy, they will typically come down the stairs and plop on a couch. I will join them, wrap my arms around them. Our granddaughter will chat. Our grandson will usually just sit quietly leaning on me. When there is silence, I will often find myself praying for that child. It doesn’t last long before hunger sets in, or the other one comes down and the tickling, or poking begins. But those brief moments of quietly getting to know them is life giving to my soul.
There you have it. “These are a few of my favorite things”. They bring peace to the chaos that life often is, joy to my mind when I think of them. I think that we humans can often forget how healing it is to think of our favorite things. Scripture says, ” Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable — if anything is excellent or praiseworthy — think about such things and the God of peace will be with you” (Philippians 4:8). I hope that today you will take a few minutes to reflect on a few of your favorite things, and enjoy the peace that comes with remembering.
An Ordinary Life 