No Need to Compose Yourself Before Entering

The engine is off. The silence rushes in to fill the space where the road noise used to be.

Now you are alone with the rearview mirror, watching your own face, forcing the tension to leave your jaw before you turn the handle. You are practicing the art of being okay when you are not.

But the light does not need you to relax your features to let you in. It saw you on the highway.

It saw you in the driveway. It sees the mask you are holding up, and it loves the face beneath it just as much.

You do not have to compose yourself to be worthy of this house. The Father is kind to the ungrateful and the weary alike.

He does not wait for your performance to end before he welcomes you home. The light is already inside the room you are about to enter, waiting for the real you to walk through the door.