Held While Dripping and Undone

The water has turned cold against your skin, and you are still standing there. Not because you want to be, but because the distance to the towel feels like miles.

The mask you will wear today—the smile, the competence, the 'I'm fine'—is heavy, and you haven't even dried off yet. You feel like a fraud waiting to happen.

But the light does not need your performance to find you. It is already in the steam, in the chill, in the exhaustion of simply being alive.

Jesus was tired too, and he did not demand you be warm before he came near. He meets you in the shiver.

You do not have to summon the strength to finish the ritual right now. Just stand.

Just breathe. The light is not asking you to be ready; it is asking you to be here.

The mask can wait. The towel can wait.

You are already held, exactly as you are, dripping and undone.