Let July be July,

and let August be August.

And let yourself

just be

even in

the uncertainty.

You don’t have to fix everything.

You don’t have to solve everything.

And you can still find peace

and grow

in the wild

of changing things.”

– Morgan Harper Nichols

July. It has been quite a month.

For reasons related to my family’s health that I won’t detail here, I knew it was going to be a tremendously rough ride. As we made our way through June, it felt like we were on a prolonged climb to the top of a roller coaster… click, click, click, click, click, click. Only the ascent wasn’t leading to a thrill on the other side — rather it would be a deep and frightening dive into an abyss of uncertainty.

Almost at the height of my fear and anxiety, I spotted this little teal heart in a parking garage. It was on the ground right next to my car as I opened the door – and all I could do was stare in amazement. If you’ve been visiting this blog for any length of time or if know me at all, you know that spotting hearts is fairly commonplace for me. But this one was different. This was not something that resembled a heart or could be subject to interpretation: it was a heart. A dirty, tattered, water-stained little heart. And I knew in my soul that it was a message meant specifically for me: love is there…even when things are really messy. For the first time in quite a while, I exhaled. It was going to be okay. In some way, shape or form, it was going to be okay.

While I typically don’t keep the quirky things I find, this little heart came home with me. And true to her promise…everything turned out just fine.

For now.

July is almost over and in a little more than a week, we will flip over that calendar page for good. We’ll say hello to August and see what comes next. Our roller coaster ride will continue. But wherever it takes us – be it dirty or spotless, difficult or a breeze, it’ll be okay. Love will be there.