The Light Runs Before You Speak

The morning light hits the window, and you put on the face that says you are fine. You watch others speak a language of faith that feels ancient and foreign to your tongue now.

You feel like a fraud standing there, nodding while your heart is silent. But the light does not need your words to see you.

It sees the exhaustion behind the smile, the honest ache of not knowing what to say. There was a father who saw his son coming home from a long way off — before the apology, before the speech, he ran.

The light runs toward you not because you have the right words, but because you are there. You do not have to perform okayness for the One who knows the silence is where the truth lives.

The mask is heavy, but the light is waiting for you to take it off.