You Do Not Have to Earn Breath

The afternoon stretches long and thin, a crowded room where you hold your breath so no one hears you gasp. You think if you stay still enough, if you make yourself small enough, the weight will pass without touching you.

But the light does not need you to perform invisibility to see you. There was a man blind from birth, and the crowd assumed his darkness was a punishment for someone's sin.

Jesus looked past the accusation, past the shame, and saw only a canvas for the works of God. He did not ask the man to fix his sight before offering healing.

He simply touched the eyes that could not see and said: receive your sight. You do not have to earn the right to breathe in this room.

The air is already yours. The light is already here, waiting for you to exhale the fear that you are too broken to be held.