It's July and I have hope in who I am becoming.

My life, is July. Childhood is June, and old age is August, but here it is, July, and my life, this year, is July inside of July.

July is messy and golden. It’s the middle — not where I started, not where I’ll end, but where things root deeply beneath the surface. It is warm, full of life, blooming, and does this without the fear of the storms and drought that may happen.

We are halfway through the year and I am not the person I thought I would be. I am not in the place I had planned on. I have different people in my life than who I thought. But I am here. I am embracing every minute of the sunshine during these long days of summer.

Who I Am Becoming

I recently wrote down the words I want to be said about me at my funeral. I know, dark, right? Among these bullet points were words like generous, adventurous, loyal, genuine, loving, selfless, joyful, and humble. I am trying to use those as my gauge for how I conduct myself -- not a checklist, but I hope that if these are choices I make everyday, they will become habits and then my character. I believe this is the person I am becoming.

I know I am not there yet. I am not all that I want to be. However, I am experiencing things and doing things I prayed for two years ago. I am trying to enjoy that.

I've had some things in this season of my life that have been really hard to grasp, accept, and then move on from. This includes losing a few of my best friends, graduating and leaving college, a rough breakup with the guy I thought was my forever, starting a new job in a new city, and moving out of the town that witnessed so many versions of me and felt more like home than any place ever had before. There have been a whole lot of endings. I really don't like goodbyes.

Despite the endings, there is opportunity for new things: friends, hobbies (I am trying to teach myself to play the guitar), favorite restaurants, relationships, joy, music, ways to spend my time, and even nurturing those relationships that have been there the whole time. How exciting! The person I am becoming is learning how to focus on hope and joy, even when it gets hard to see the silver lining and find the joy.

Nurturing friendships and reconnecting with the people and things that make me feel alive is a good place to be while I am trying to figure out who I am again. In this case, a weekend on the lake with my very best friends!

I don't know this new version of me yet. I know she will be wonderful and I already love her. I just want to get to know her. She is still developing so I will stay patient. I cannot wait to see who I am becoming.

I’m not all the way there — but I’m not who I was. And that has to count for something.

Where God Meets Me

I used to think God only moved in the big, dramatic moments — in the miracles, the heartbreaks, the radical changes. But now I’m learning He’s just as present in the middle.

July feels like the middle.

This month — this metaphor — it’s where I’m standing right now. Things are blooming, but not fully grown. The heat is steady, the storms unpredictable. The days are long and filled with light, but not without quiet ache. It’s a strange beauty, this season of becoming.

God is doing something here, in the heat and stillness. Not rushing me. Not demanding a finished product. Just inviting me to stay with Him in the sunlit in-between — to trust that roots grow deep in warm soil, even when I can’t see what’s happening under the surface.

How comforting to know that He isn’t standing at the edge of August, waiting for me to arrive more put together. He’s walking beside me, now, in July, in the messy middle, in the slow, sacred stretch of days. He’s not asking for perfection. He’s asking for presence. Mine. His. Together.

"He who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus." (Philippians 1:6)

So I’ll stay here a little longer. In July. Letting things take root. Letting the light in. Trusting that even though I don’t fully know the woman I’m becoming, He does. And that’s enough.

If your life feels a little like July — full of change, stretched out, unsure — I get it. We may not be there yet, but thank God we’re not who we used to be.

All My Love,

Neva