The Trembling Hands Are Known

The coffee cup is warm in your hand, but your fingers are trembling beneath the table. You just told them you're blessed. You smiled the right smile, nodded at the right time, and performed the peace you do not feel. But inside, there is a silence so loud it feels like abandonment. You praised a God who feels miles away, and now you are swallowing the lie along with your drink.

The light does not need your performance. It never asked for the mask. It sees the hands shaking under the table more clearly than it sees the smile on your face. There is a truth that lives in you, independent of your ability to articulate it or feel it right now.

The darkness has not overcome it. Even when your mouth says one thing and your body screams another, the light remains untouched by the contradiction. You are not a fraud because you are hurting. You are a human being carrying a weight too heavy for one pair of hands.

You do not have to hold it together for the light to stay. It was there before the first word of your prayer, and it is still there in the silence after the last one. The mask is for them. The trembling is for Him. And He is not leaving because your hands won't stop shaking.