The Light That Kneels to Wash You

This is the hour when the skin feels too thin. When the thought of being known—truly known, without the armor you wear all day—sends a cold terror through your bones.

You are afraid that if the light sees you naked, it will turn away. But listen.

There was a moment when the teacher took a towel and knelt on the floor. He did not ask the friends to wash their feet first.

He did not wait for them to be clean. He reached for the dirt.

He touched the grime of the road with his own hands. The light does not recoil from your nakedness.

It leans in closer. It is not shocked by what it finds.

It is not disgusted by the broken places you try to hide. The one who sees you completely is the same one who kneels to wash you.

You do not have to cover yourself before you can be held. The terror says: run.

The truth says: stay. Let the hands that made you touch the parts of you that feel unmade.

You are not too ruined to be loved. You are exactly who the light came to find.