The Light Sees Beneath Your Mask

The mask feels heavy this morning, doesn't it? You are smiling at colleagues, nodding in meetings, performing the role of someone who has it all together, while inside you are crumbling under the weight of exhaustion.

You are afraid that if you admit you are tired, the whole illusion will shatter and everyone will see you are not perfect. But the light does not need your performance to recognize you.

There was a woman who had been bleeding for twelve years, hiding in the back of a crowd, convinced she was too broken to be seen, too unclean to be touched. She thought she had to sneak up and just grab the edge of a robe to be healed.

But when she touched it, the light stopped the entire procession. It turned around in the middle of the noise and the rush and asked: who touched me?

It did not want the crowd. It wanted her.

The light is not fooled by your smile. It sees the trembling hand beneath the sleeve.

It sees the exhaustion you are trying so hard to hide. And it is not disappointed by your fatigue.

It is waiting for you to stop pretending so it can call you by name. The mask is for the world.

The face beneath it is for the light.