We all try to wear the face of an angel.
To appear kind, composed, and faithful.
But some days, that mask becomes too heavy.
And a question begins to echo quietly inside:
“Am I truly good? Am I truly living in God’s will?”
Light is beautiful.
But when it shines too harshly,
it begins to burn.
The place of calling,
the weight of being someone others expect you to be—
sometimes it wears you down.
And so, you step back into the shade.
Many would call that shade a failure.
A lack of faith. A fading passion.
But I’ve come to see it differently.
The shade is not the end.
It’s a space to ask:
“Why did I come here?”
Not because I fled,
but because I needed to remember who I was
and where I was truly called to stand.
In my book, Angels, Satan, and Those Who Sit in the Shade,
I reflect on the one who was once an angel—
who became Satan not because of what he did,
but because he left the place God had given him.
That truth struck me deeply.
“Am I staying in the place God gave me?”
“Am I living as the one I was meant to be?”
The shade is uncomfortable.
But it is there, in that quiet and shadowed place,
that I begin to hear the voice of God again.
Not in the noise, not in the brightness—
but in the stillness.
“Beloved, I am still waiting for you.
Your place is beside Me.
Your place is in being fully, freely yourself.”
So now, let us pause.
Not to run from the light,
but to look honestly at why we needed the shade.
The shade is not a hiding place—
it is a space for healing,
a space to begin again.
And it is there,
that we hear the call of God once more.
Closing Line
The angel did not fall because he sinned,
but because he left the place God had given him.
And so I ask myself,
Am I standing where I was called to be?