The Light Sitting at Your Empty Table

The house is quiet now, but the silence feels heavy, like a chair pulled up to a table that no one else will occupy. You are expected to smile at a holiday you must now endure alone, carrying a plate for a ghost while the world celebrates around you.

It is a specific kind of darkness when the festive lights only illuminate how empty the room has become. But listen — the light does not require a crowd to be real.

It does not need the noise of a feast to exist. There is a father who saw his son coming home from a long way off.

He did not wait for the apology. He ran.

Before the speech, before the explanation of where he had been or why he left — he ran. That same running love is not confined to a crowded room.

It is here, in this quiet, in this ache. The light that lived in Jesus is already sitting at this table with you.

It is not a guest you have to entertain. It is the very air you are breathing.

You are not alone in this watch. The light is keeping the vigil with you.