He Ran Before You Spoke

The house is quiet now, but your mind is loud with the speech you are writing. You are rehearsing the perfect apology, the exact words that will finally make you worthy of being held.

You believe you must explain the mess before you are allowed to sit in the light. But listen — the Father did not wait for the son to finish his sentence.

He saw him from a long way off and ran. Before the speech.

Before the shame was confessed. Before the dirt was washed off.

He ran. The light does not require your apology as a ticket to enter your own heart.

It is already there, waiting in the dark, not to judge the script you wrote, but to hold the person who wrote it. You do not need to earn the embrace.

You only need to stop running long enough to feel the arms that are already around you.