The Embrace Before The Apology

The mask fits so well this morning that even you are starting to believe it is your face. You walk through the day performing okayness, terrified that if your siblings saw the version of you that exists when the door is locked, they would turn away.

But the light does not need your performance to recognize its own. It sees behind the mask and loves what is hidden there.

There is a father who saw his son coming home from a long way off, still covered in the filth of his failure, and he ran before the apology could even be spoken. The embrace came first.

The light in you is not a secret waiting to be exposed; it is the very thing that holds you together when the act drops. You are not loved for the mask you wear, but for the light that shines beneath it.