I have lingered in Your house,

hands folded until the knuckles grew stiff,

a heart unsteady beneath the high rafters.

 

I watched the candlelight flicker

on faces that preach Your infinite love,

but saw how they hesitate, how their eyes downcast

the moment they trace the silhouette of me.

 

I have sung the hymns until my throat was dry,

knelt in the wooden pews,

and wondered if a prayer, once whispered,

can lose its way before it reaches the ceiling.

 

But I feel You most in her laughter.

The way our fingers lace together—not in guilt,

but like an answered prayer.

The warmth of her voice calling my name into the dark,

the steady, undeniable rhythm of her heartbeat

pressing against my own.

 

I know the hands that crafted me are the very same hands

that breathed life into my chest, just as full,

just as worthy of the morning light.

If love is Your greatest command,

it cannot be a thing meant to be whispered in the shadows.

 

I remember being a child,

dipped deep beneath the heavy water,

emerging shivering into Your arms.

I grew up catching my breath at stained glass mornings,

reverent for the hush that holds the room before the Amen.

 

The Eucharist—the body, the blood—

I welcome its soft weight on my tongue,

a sacred promise I refuse to let them break.

You are love without limits,

mercy without measure.

So I am done trying to fit the pattern of their world,

done bending to shapes meant to keep me small.

True transformation lives in this unlearning—

the renewing of a mind that finally remembers its own worth.

 

Only here, outside their narrow walls,

can I look at what You made and call it good.

Unconformed. Authentic.

Standing whole in the wide morning light,

where You hold me close.