Smelling the lilacs

Due to the amount of brain activity that I've been exerting the past couple weeks, I haven't been able to be as insightful or thoughtful as I'd like to be. However, even as I've been on a sort of "survival mode", trying to get everything done, I've been trying to make it a discipline to just stop for a little bit every day. Even if that means losing time on work, it's been a source of necessary refreshment.

Today, a couple really neat things stand out to me, and I recognize God giving me bits of beautiful things to sustain me:

I had breakfast this morning with a dear friend, and a professor who means a lot to me. It was a source of encouragement that ran so deep that I still find myself reflecting on the morning, like I'm carrying it around in my heart.

Earlier this morning I went for a walk on the Trinity Trail, and periodically stopped to bend over and smell the flowers. I had never done that before. I enjoyed it so much that I've found myself smelling flowers all over campus today.

I just got back from going to the carwash with my same dear friend...we went not only to get the car clean, but to watch the soap and water against the windows. (It ended up being not as relaxing as we planned, and actually a little scary...but laughing was just as good!)

I think I'm refreshed enough to hit the books for the rest of the night.