Learning to shine again (13 Oct 25)

Learning to Shine Again

On October 6th at 7:29pm, I looked up and saw this full moon glowing against the darkness. Radiant. Complete. Unbothered by the night surrounding it.

Standing there, neck craned back, I couldn't stop staring. The moon hung there in perfect stillness, luminous and whole. No matter how dark the sky, no matter what shadows tried to claim the night, the moon just kept shining. Steady. Constant. Unapologetic in its brightness.

I've been thinking a lot about forgiveness lately - the kind that sets you free from wounds nobody else knows you carry. The kind you need when you've lived with pain since childhood that you learned to hide so well, even you sometimes forgot it was there.

**The moon doesn't ask permission to shine.** 

When you've carried trauma that nobody sees, you learn to make yourself invisible. You dim your light because somewhere along the way, shining felt dangerous. But look at the moon - it never apologizes for being bright. It never dims itself for anyone. It just is. Fully, completely, brilliantly itself.

**The moon shows us that completeness comes from within.** 

Even when it appears as a thin crescent, the whole moon is still there. Even when relationships tried to break us, even when we learned to hide the broken parts, our wholeness never left - it was just waiting. Forgiveness is remembering that what happened to us doesn't define what we are. We were always whole. We just forgot.

**The moon rises every night, no matter what happened the day before.** 

It doesn't hold grudges against the darkness. It doesn't refuse to show up because last night was difficult. It simply rises, again and again, faithful to its own nature. That's what forgiveness looks like - not forgetting the past, but choosing to rise anyway. To show up as ourselves, to shine our light, regardless of what tried to dim us along the way.

This moon, scarred with ancient craters, still glows. It doesn't hide its marks. It wears them openly and shines anyway - perhaps even more beautifully because of them.

If you're healing from things nobody knows about, from pain you've carried in silence since you were young - look up. The moon never stopped being the moon, and you never stopped being you.

Keep glowing.

🌷 from Linda's desk @ Tulip Meadows 🌷