Love Runs to the Mess Before Apology

The sun is up, but you feel like an imposter in your own home. You move through the morning rituals, smiling at your children, while inside you are convinced they will soon discover you are a fraud.

That the love you offer is too thin, too broken, too insufficient to hold them. But listen — the light does not require a perfect parent.

It only requires a present one. The father saw his son while he was still a long way off, covered in the filth of his mistakes, and ran to meet him before the apology could even be formed.

He did not wait for the performance to be clean. He ran to the mess.

God's love is not a reward you earn by getting it right today. It is the ground you stand on when you get it wrong.

You are not the source of your child's safety. You are simply the vessel through which the true Light reaches them.

Put down the heavy mask of perfection. The morning does not need you to be flawless.

It just needs you to be here.