Let me give you the low down on Lauren's day today. Class from 10-2:15, tutoring, short meeting with Hollister, meeting a new babysitting family, ate dinner with Katelyn, and got home tonight around 7:00ish. Throughout the day though...driving to class, sitting in my carrel at the library, walking to Hollister from my parking spot a mile away...I was noticing the trees. I took 3 or 4 pictures of them today because they just look beautiful. The leaves are changing colors, and falling off the trees..I love fall.
Tonight me and Katelyn went to Subway for dinner. We didn't want to bring it home and eat it, but it was freezing in Subway so we didn't want to eat it in there either. I opened the back of my CRV and we ate in the parking lot out of the trunk of my car. Katelyn talked with me about her day and how she feels like her life is really stressful right now too...and at first..it was hard for me to listen. My mind was so distracted thinking about work, school, blah blah blah. But I intentionally decided to push those thoughts away for that moment and just listen to her, just engage in what she was saying.
I don't have any deep spiritual truths behind all of this...but today I just realized, if you're not going to take the time to notice God changing the colors of the leaves, or sit in a parking lot and feel the cool evening air and watch busy people live busy lives, if you don't just sit there and genuinely listen to your little sister...then your day truly does just become about school, tutoring, babysitting, work, (insert your life activity here). At the end of the day, you lie in bed thinking about what you did that day....instead of the beauty in the day. Because there really can be beauty amidst chaos...you just have to choose to find it and engage in it in order to have joy. Otherwise your days equal stress and insignificance no matter how many things you did that day.
