What Was Worth Keeping

Someone decided this wall should not stay blank.

They stood long enough to imagine color here.

Long enough to make something for people who would pass by without knowing their name.

Time has softened the paint.

Sun and rain have done their slow work.

But the mural remains.

Not erased.

Not replaced with something cleaner.

Not painted over.

Many of us learned that survival meant becoming invisible.

Quieting the parts of ourselves that took up room.

Editing our stories.

Keeping only what felt acceptable.

Covering the rest with spiritual language or politeness.

We tell ourselves that disappearing is humility.

That shrinking is faith.

But Christ does not rescue people by erasing them.

He restores what shame taught us to hide.

He keeps what the world was too hurried to protect.

Stopping shrinking sometimes looks like letting yourself remain.

Letting your story stay on the wall.

Letting the parts you once apologized for be seen again.

Not loudly.

Not dramatically.

Just honestly.

There are histories you learned to fold away.

Gifts you buried because they drew attention.

Questions you stopped asking because they made rooms uncomfortable.

Christ does not ask you to bleach those parts out.

He works with what is already there.

Weathered.

Marked.

Real.

If today all you can do is let one truer sentence leave your mouth, that counts.

If you stay present instead of smoothing the edges, that is courage.

If you resist the urge to erase yourself, that is worship.

You do not have to repaint your life to deserve space in it.

God already decided you were worth keeping.