The Light Waits Behind Your Mask

The room is loud, and you are sitting in the center of it, smiling while your mind calculates exactly how long you can hold your breath before you collapse. Everyone sees the mask.

They see the nod, the laugh, the perfect performance of okayness. But they cannot see the air running out inside your chest.

They cannot see the silence screaming behind your eyes. You are exhausted from holding the pose.

You are tired of being the person who has it together when you are falling apart. But listen — the light does not need your performance.

It never asked for the smile. It sees the calculation.

It sees the suffocation. And it is not disappointed by the mask; it is waiting for you to put it down.

The light that lived in Jesus is the same light that is currently trapped behind your ribs, and it is not afraid of your unmasked face. You do not have to earn the right to breathe in this room.

The air is already yours. The mask was never the condition for belonging.

Take a breath. Not for them.

For the truth that lives in you, which has been waiting for you to stop pretending long enough to feel it.