The Light Shines in Your Hollow Places

The house is quiet now, and the mask you wore all day finally slips. There is a secret relief when people call you strong, because it means you never have to confess how hollow you actually feel inside.

You carry the weight of their expectation while your own spirit starves in silence. But the light does not need your performance.

It does not need your strength. In the deepest hour, when you are too tired to pretend, the true light that gives light to everyone is already shining within the hollow places.

You do not have to fill yourself up to be held. The darkness has not overcome it.

The relief you feel tonight is not that you fooled them; it is that you can finally stop fooling yourself.