You Were Never Meant to Burn Alone

by Sarah and the Holy One who stands beside her

Come in, beloved.
The door is still open.
You don’t need to earn your seat
at this table.
Your breath is already
a kind of prayer.

Your breath is
the next gentlest step
through the door.

Let God say it plain:
you were never meant
to burn alone.

Somewhere, a parent
closes the hospice folder
and holds their mother’s hand.
A traveler boards a plane
with documents that won’t protect them.
A pastor steps to the pulpit
praying for energy,
for mental health,
for people with names
forbidden by empire.

Another whispers
“goodbye” to a marriage—
still full of care.
Still love.
Still, it’s hard.
Still the heart.
Breathe.
The Holy One is still here.
Breathe.

One holds the tiniest child
ever to be born
and names her Miracle
before knowing
what tomorrow will hold.

God sees you.
Still love.
Still, it’s hard.
Still the heart.
Breathe.

God sees you.
You light the candles anyway.
You show up anyway.

And you—
you rise too.
Like flame glowing,
saying, “This way.
This is the truth.
The life.”

You rise
not because you must,
but because love
is still calling your name
across the valley.

Let love call you home.
Let the light—
the lightness of love—
lift the weight.
Let it call you back:
to the Holy One,
to your friends,
to this table,
to bread shared
in trembling hands.

You can bring your grief,
your “I don’t know what comes next.”
Your holy, “not like this.”
God does not want
another sacrifice.

God wants your aliveness.
Your sorrow.
Your joy.
Your tears
(even the snot-cry—
God’s there for that).
God wants
your goofball smile.
Your rage.
Your Holy Yes,
and
your Heck No.

So come—
bring the trembling,
soft, whole self of you.

Come—
bring your fierce questions.
Bring your beautiful ache for justice.
Bring your love of Pride parades.
Bring the picture of the new grandbaby.
God loves the roly-poly grandpuppies, too.

Because you
are everything still worth singing about.

Bring your hope
that we might love our neighbors
without fear.
That we might love all of ourselves
enough to let God
love us back.

We’ll hold it in the light,
together.

I love you.
God does, too.

This poem is woven with the prayers of my friends.
I carried our prayers to the Holy One.
I heard my friends praying,
and I sat with the God
who kisses every star
and every freckle.

I asked God,
“Will you love us like this?”

The answer is always yes.