Most of us have probably seen The Sound of Music with Julie Andrew’s song A Few of My Favorite Things. It is said to often be a song for Christmas time and that is a good idea. This time of the year is a good time to reflect on the blessings of life, especially those that are from the birth of Jesus as the reason for the season. With all of the hustle and bustle and the commercialization of the season, we have to force ourselves to stop and move away from that to think about “a few of our favorite things.”
Favorite things in life are most often those that don’t have cost or bells and whistles associated with them. In the song, those things included “Raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens.” For myself, these things include many blessings from nature such as animal antics, beautiful sunrises and sunsets, and the display of autumn leaves or flowering shrubs.
The best favorite things are those that are God-made versus man-made. God’s created things last and generally are free and without stress. Man-made favorite things such as the stuff we buy are temporal and over time will rot, rust, or tear up. Man-made stuff can also create stress with the costs of time and money. The blessing is but for a minute and then it can become clutter or a burden.
What are your favorite things? Are they things that just require you to stop and appreciate them – or are they things that require the stress of time and money? I know some people who do a gratitude journal with which they write down each day things that they are grateful for. This is a start to recognition of favorite things. Like other aspects of life, it takes practice. As we stop to be blessed, it will become a habit.
