Peace Is Not A Wage You Earn

The house is quiet now, and the only thing loud enough to fill it is the voice in your head telling you that you haven't suffered enough yet to deserve rest. You are still awake because you believe peace is a wage you must earn through exhaustion, a prize reserved for those who have finally paid their debt in full.

But the light does not operate on a system of wages or worthiness. There was a father who saw his son coming home from a long way off — dirty, broken, rehearsing a speech about how he no longer deserved to be called a son.

He did not wait for the apology to finish. He did not make the boy prove he had learned his lesson.

He ran. Before the speech, before the earning, before the cleaning up — he ran.

The kingdom belongs to those who are empty, not those who are full of merit. You do not have to bleed to be held.

The peace you are trying to earn has already been given, freely, to the one who simply comes down from the tree.