The Light Knows Your Name First

The day has settled, and now the mirror holds up a face you barely know. The eyes staring back feel foreign, worn down by the performance you kept up since sunrise.

You look at that reflection and wonder where the real you went, or if they ever existed at all. But the light does not need you to recognize yourself before it can recognize you.

There was a father who saw his son coming home from a long way off — dirty, changed, unrecognizable to himself. He did not wait for the boy to fix his face or find his identity.

He ran. The light sees through the distortion of the glass.

It knows the name written on your heart even when you cannot read it yourself. You are not the stranger in the mirror.

You are the one being known.