The Light Does Not Look Away

The mask slipped this morning, just for a second, and the tears got out before you could catch them. You saw someone notice.

You saw them quickly look away, pretending they didn't see the crack in your armor. And now the shame is heavier than the grief was.

You feel exposed. Naked.

Like a fraud who was finally caught. But the light does not look away when you cry.

It does not pretend it didn't happen. There was a woman once, caught in a thing she couldn't hide, surrounded by people who wanted to stone her for her brokenness.

The light bent down and wrote in the dust, giving everyone space to breathe, to look away not in pretense but in mercy. When he stood up, he said to her: 'Neither do I condemn you.' He saw everything.

And he chose kindness. The light knows you are tired of performing.

It is not shocked by your tears. It is not disappointed by the mask falling off.

What is hidden is already known, and what is known is already held. You do not have to glue the mask back on to be loved.