The Light Sees Behind Your Mask

The mask feels heavy this morning, doesn't it? You walk into the room and everyone sees the smile, but no one sees the hands shaking underneath the table.

You are so tired of holding the performance together, of acting like the light isn't flickering inside your chest. But listen — the light does not need your smile to be real.

It was shining in you before you ever learned to pretend. There is a father who saw his son coming home from a long way off, still covered in the dirt of his failure, and he ran.

Before the apology, before the speech, before the cleanup — he ran. The light sees behind the mask.

It knows the exhaustion. And it loves what is hidden there more than what is displayed.

You do not have to be fine for the light to hold you. The mask is for the world.

The truth is for God. And the truth is enough.