sitting in the parked car in the driveway for twenty minutes after work, rehearsing a cheerful voice before walking through the front door

The Mask Can Come Off Now

The engine is off, but the performance is just warming up. You sit in the quiet of the driveway, rehearsing a cheerfulness that feels like a mask you have to glue on before turning the handle.

It is exhausting to be two people—the one who carried the weight all day, and the one who must pretend it doesn't exist the moment you cross the threshold. But the light does not need your act.

It sees the fatigue behind your eyes even now, through the windshield, before you have said a word. There is a truth that lives in us and will be with us forever, and it knows the real you, not the rehearsed version.

You do not have to hide the heaviness to be loved by the light that is already waiting inside the house. The mask can come off; the light sees what is behind it, and it calls that truth holy.

Drawing from

2 John, Matthew

Verses

2 John 1:4

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