The Light Does Not Recoil From You

The afternoon light is unforgiving, exposing the exact moment a hand slipped from yours and kept walking. You tell yourself it was an accident, a distraction, the weight of a grocery bag.

But the silence afterward whispers the terror you cannot name: that the pull away was not clumsy, but intentional. A subconscious rejection of the real you hiding behind your smile.

In this long middle of the day, the performance feels heaviest. You are walking beside someone who thinks they know you, while you feel like a stranger in your own skin.

But listen — the light does not recoil from what is real. Jesus walked through crowds that pressed against him, yet he felt the specific touch of the one who needed him most.

He did not pull away from the bleeding woman who touched him in fear; he stopped the entire procession to find her. He called her daughter.

The light does not reject the broken parts of you; it seeks them out. It is not afraid of your hidden places.

If a hand pulls away, it is not because the light in you is too much to bear. It is because the other person is still learning how to see.

The real you is not something to be hidden until it is safe. The real you is the only thing that can be loved.