The Guest Who Never Left

The pot is still simmering. The table is set for two, out of a habit your hands remember even when your mind has caught up to the silence.

You stand there in the quiet kitchen, the steam rising like a prayer that has nowhere to go. The chair across from you is empty, and the weight of that empty space feels heavier than the full plate.

But listen — the light does not require an audience to be real. It shines in the split wood and under the lifted stone, in the ordinary act of cooking for one.

You are not dining alone. The presence you feel in this room is not a memory; it is the guest who never left.

The table is not a monument to who is missing. It is an altar to the One who is here.