The Feast Is Kept Warm For You

The sun is setting, and the house is finally quiet enough for the fear to speak. It whispers that while you were standing still, your siblings moved on.

That they have stopped knocking. That they are building lives where you no longer fit, leaving you behind in the dust of their progress.

But listen — the light does not measure distance the way the world does. There is a story of a father who saw his son while he was still a long way off.

He did not wait for the apology. He did not wait for the son to clean himself up.

He ran. The running happened before the arrival.

The love was already in motion while the son was still lost. Your silence is not proof of their absence.

It is just the space between the running and the embrace. They may be quieter than you think.

They may be watching the road more closely than you know. The light that lives in them is the same light that lives in you — and that light does not forget its own.

You are not being replaced. You are being waited for.

The feast is not canceled because you are late. It is being kept warm for the moment you walk through the door.