Have you ever felt like the universe is sending you a message through nature?

In this photo, the multilayered message I perceived was:

• This is a sign.
• Something good is about to happen.
• You have favor.

That was the basic message. Deeper still, since I believe in God, I felt this:

• There is a God.
• He cares about us.
• For every bad thing that happens, there is also a good thing.

We have to be looking for the good.

Sometimes I ask for signs and sometimes they just happen. When I ask for them, the significance is encoded. It could be decades before I find out what they mean. When they just happen, I’m meant to know what they mean in real time. I’m supposed to pay attention and act accordingly. I might need to help someone even if it’s not completely apparent what the help is. What I do might not help me at all, but it also doesn’t harm me. That much is promised. I just have to show up and be kind.

The significance of seeing the marine blue butterfly was that I need to uphold the value of integrity in my life no matter what happens. I felt a natural desire to want to verify which butterfly this was. However, I needed help from someone skilled with identifying them because it could have taken forever for me to do this on my own. It doesn’t happen to be in my skill set, but there are always people proximal to us who do have skills they can lend.

There is never anything we must do alone. I’m not a big believer in the American ideals of rugged individualism and self-reliance, and yet, I can still admire those who embody the ability to do their own thing.

For whatever reason, it’s a recurring theme for me to be reminded of how essential we are to one another. When we have favor, the right teammates show up at exactly the right times. We share the same values, and we accomplish great things together.