The Light Older Than The Nightmare

The house is quiet now, but your mind is screaming. You watch the rise and fall of their chest and wonder if the dreams behind those closed eyes are safe, or if the darkness is already whispering lies they cannot fight alone.

This is the long middle of the day — the hour where the weight of what you cannot control feels heaviest. You are standing guard over a life you did not create and cannot fully save, and the fear is a physical thing in your throat.

But listen — the light that lives inside your child is older than the nightmare. It was there before the first tear, and it will be there after the sun goes down.

God is kind to the ungrateful and the wicked, and surely, surely, God is kind to the sleeping child who does not know they are loved. You do not have to fix the dream.

You only have to be the presence that waits when they wake.