The Light Knows Your Cost

The afternoon sun is bright, and you are tired from pretending it costs you nothing to stand in it. You carry a secret terror: that if they saw the trembling in your hands, the sheer effort it takes to do simple things, they would turn away.

They would revoke their approval. But the light does not measure your output.

It sees the cost. There was a man born blind, and the world assumed his condition was a punishment for sin.

Jesus looked at him and said the darkness was not his fault—it was a space for something else to be shown. You are not being punished for your struggle.

You are being held in it. The light knows how heavy the mat is that you carry every day.

And it does not ask you to put on a show of strength. It only asks you to let it see the weight.

Go home to your own people and tell them how much the Lord has done for you, and how he has had mercy on you. Not how much you achieved.

How much mercy you received. The approval you fear losing was never yours to keep anyway.

It belongs to the one who knew your cost before you ever paid it.