Beauty is... Celebrating Everyday | Lauren Sims
Photos C/O: Lindsey Shea Photography
We're so honored to have Lauren Sims join us this week for Beauty Is. Lauren has a heart of gold. She helps run the uber successful LoLo Mag in Dallas, Texas. She loves God, her husband, and of course fashion. And this girl has some fabulous things to say! We're so grateful for you Lauren!
XO,
Kat + Em
The older I get, the more I realize this: Life moves so quickly.
Days are filled with laundry and errands and meetings and deadlines and before you know it, your head is on the pillow again at night. Another day has flown by. Lately, I have been learning the importance of savoring each day, each moment. Of celebrating the everyday, and truly living in each moment with a joyful and grateful heart.
March 28th will mark my one-year wedding anniversary, and what a whirlwind this year has been! Our first year of marriage has been filled with growing, adjusting, compromising, laughing, crying (for me…), adventuring, and so much more. With all the beauty in our first year it still is easy for me to focus on the arguments, or what my husband didn’t do for me that day, or compare him with what other husbands are doing for their wives. But how much more joy is there in celebrating when he brings me flowers home, when he does the dishes, or when he plays with my hair while we watch a show.
As women, it is so tempting for us to pick apart and find the negative – not just in our husbands, but in ourselves too. I am learning how much beauty there is in celebrating the little things. In savoring the nights where Michael and I make cookies ,and watch Netflix, or go to church together. When my focus is on savoring these moments, it fills our marriage with so much more joy and sweetness, and in the end, love.
I recently started reading Shauna Niequist’s most recent book, Savor, and she sums up this concept of celebrating and savoring perfectly:
God is always speaking, always. He is always moving, always present, always creating, always healing. The trick, at least for me, is paying attention. The trick is savoring…I forget so easily that there’s a bigger picture. I’m easily seduced by the bustle of the day – lunch and laundry, deadlines and dinnertime. I forget that it’s all held together by a holy, loving God, and that we get to be his partners in restoration and healing. I forget that there’s more than I see, more than I can dream.
Life can feel so mundane when you get caught up in the day-to-day, or in your set backs and insecurities. I believe life is so much more beautiful when you accept each day as it comes, with a thankful heart: thankful that you woke up this morning, for the smell of freshly brewed coffee, for the physical ability to go for a walk or run or whatever it is you do to stay active.
It is far too easy to have our minds going in 1 million directions while we’re on the treadmill, or in the grocery store, making mental to-do list as we hustle and bustle about our day. But let’s not miss out on the current task at hand. Let’s 100% live in and savor each moment so that we don’t miss all the beauty and life there is in these daily tasks or occurrences.
May we walk through each day expecting, noticing, and celebrating glimpses and shimmers of the divine, right in the midst of our daily lives.” -Lauren Sims
When your mind is in a million places while you’re checking out at the grocery store, you might fail to realize that the cashier really just needed someone to smile at her and ask how her day was going. When you’re doing your daily jog around the neighborhood but already planning what’s for dinner that night, you might miss how perfectly blue the sky is that day and find the beauty of God in that.
So let’s stop, and pay attention. Let’s put an end to our focus on fear and insecurities, and instead soak up the goodness and beauty of life all around us. May we walk through each day expecting, noticing, and celebrating glimpses and shimmers of the divine, right in the midst of our daily lives.
XO,