Rest Behind the Mask of Okayness

The morning light hits the kitchen table where you both sit, and you wear the mask of okayness so the children don't see the crack. It is exhausting to perform peace while your heart is still bleeding from the betrayal that brought you here.

You smile at the person who broke you, and the gap between that smile and your truth feels like it might swallow you whole. But the light sees behind the mask — it sees the grief you are hiding to keep them safe.

There is a peace that does not depend on your performance, a rest that waits for you to stop pretending. The light is not asking you to be strong right now.

It is simply sitting with you in the quiet ache of the pretense. You do not have to fix the broken trust today to be held by the One who knows it all.