When your gaze found mine, the whole world swayed, As if the earth had missed a hidden beat; The sunlight suddenly grew unafraid, Then melted like warm gold around my feet. I tried to look away, but something stayed, A trembling little universe in you; My eyes became two doors I could not close, And every secret seemed to wander through. I felt my cheeks turn roses in the rain, A sudden fire underneath my skin; The stars began to whisper my sweet shame, While little suns kept blooming from within. Your eyes were not just eyes, they were a place, A strange blue room where gravity was gone; I wandered through the silence of your gaze And somehow lost the person I was on. My heartbeat stumbled, then forgot its name, It ran barefoot through corridors of light; I blushed as though the moon had called me beautiful, Then hid my face from heaven's watching sight. The trees leaned closer, jealous of the view, The flowers opened wider just to see; Even the wind became unusually shy, As thoug...
I have always seen it,
the small, stubborn goodness
hiding inside terrible things.
Not because the terrible things
were good.
They weren't.
Some fires are only fires.
Some goodbyes arrive carrying knives.
Some nights break into the house
and rearrange everything
you thought you knew about living.
I don't call the darkness light.
I just keep finding
little things glowing inside it.
A woman crying at a bus stop
still moves aside
so an old man can sit.
A stranger gives directions
while his own life
is falling apart somewhere else.
Someone who has been hurt
still remembers to say,
“Be careful.”
And I think,
perhaps this is what God meant.
Not that suffering is holy.
Not that pain was sent
to make us grateful.
But that even here,
especially here,
we are still given
the strange freedom
to choose what comes out of us.
The world can put a stone
in your mouth,
and somehow
you can still speak gently.
It can take the person
you thought you'd grow old with,
and somehow
you still wish them well
before they disappear.
It can leave you
standing in the kitchen
at two in the morning,
holding a cup
you don't remember making,
and somehow
you notice the moon
caught in the window,
quiet,
ordinary,
completely unnecessary,
and therefore
almost miraculous.
I have seen goodness
in terrible situations
the way moss grows
through broken concrete.
Not loudly.
Not triumphantly.
Just there.
Green.
Insistent.
Alive.
Once,
I watched someone forgive
when they had every reason
not to.
It frightened me.
Because forgiveness
didn't look like heaven.
It looked like someone
standing in the ruins
with blood on their hands
and saying,
“I don't want to become
what hurt me.”
Maybe God lives
in that sentence.
Maybe He doesn't always
stop the storm.
Maybe sometimes
He stands inside the person
who refuses
to become cruel because of it.
I don't understand
why terrible things happen.
Anyone who tells me
they do
has probably never sat
long enough beside grief.
There are questions
that have no beautiful answer.
There are graves
that remain graves.
There are empty chairs
that never become
anything else.
There are prayers
that return unanswered
like letters
with nowhere to go.
I know this.
And still,
I believe goodness
keeps appearing.
Almost rudely.
Like flowers
growing through a wall
that should have stayed dead.
Like laughter
escaping a hospital corridor.
Like someone bringing soup
to a house
where nobody asked for it.
Like a hand
placed quietly
on another person's shoulder.
No speech.
No miracle.
Just warmth.
Sometimes I think
God's handwriting
is terribly small.
We expect thunder.
He leaves breadcrumbs.
A stranger holding the elevator.
A child sharing half a biscuit.
Someone calling their mother
just because they suddenly
thought of her.
A tired cashier
still saying,
“Have a good evening.”
A man who has lost almost everything
watering a plant
on his windowsill.
Why water it?
It won't solve anything.
The dead won't return.
The money won't appear.
The apology won't arrive.
Tomorrow may still hurt.
But the plant is thirsty.
So he waters it.
And somehow
that feels like faith to me.
Not certainty.
Not answers.
Just the decision
to keep pouring water
onto something living
when your own hands
are tired of believing.
I have seen people
become softer
without becoming weaker.
I have seen suffering
take things from them,
sleep,
innocence,
people,
years,
and yet somehow
leave behind
a strange tenderness.
They become careful
with other people's hearts.
They notice quiet people.
They sit beside the lonely.
They don't laugh
when someone cries.
They understand
that everyone
is carrying something
they cannot see.
Maybe pain
doesn't make us better.
Maybe that is too easy.
Maybe pain is simply pain.
But what we do
with the broken pieces,
that is where
I think God watches.
Not with a stopwatch.
Not keeping score.
Just watching us
stand in the wreckage
and decide,
I will not add
another wound to this world.
That, to me,
is holy.
I have seen goodness
in terrible situations
because terrible situations
have shown me
how little goodness
needs to survive.
It doesn't need
a cathedral.
It doesn't need
a perfect person.
It doesn't need
a life without scars.
Sometimes goodness
is only this:
You are angry,
but you don't destroy.
You are grieving,
but you still love.
You are afraid,
but you still open the door.
You have been betrayed,
but you don't become
a betrayer.
You have been abandoned,
but you still notice
when someone else
is standing alone.
You have every reason
to harden,
and somehow,
you don't.
I don't think God asks us
to pretend the world is beautiful.
Look around.
It isn't.
People leave.
Bodies fail.
Dreams collapse.
Kind people suffer.
Cruel people sometimes win.
The innocent do not always
get rescued in time.
Life is not a neat story.
It is blood and bread.
Bills and birthdays.
Funerals and first kisses.
Hospital lights.
Sunday mornings.
Dirty dishes.
Unexpected laughter.
A message that arrives
when you needed it most.
A message that never arrives.
It is all of it.
And somehow
God keeps leaving
little pieces of Himself
in ordinary people.
A nurse staying five minutes longer.
A father learning
how to apologize.
A stranger returning
a lost wallet.
A friend sitting in silence
because words would only
make the grief louder.
A person who is hurting
asking someone else,
“Are you okay?”
That question,
perhaps that is one of God's
oldest miracles.
Because sometimes
the person asking it
is barely okay themselves.
And yet they ask.
And yet they care.
And yet they remain human
in a world that gives them
a thousand reasons not to.
So yes,
I see goodness
in terrible situations.
Not because I think
God enjoys our suffering.
Not because I believe
every tragedy has a purpose
I can understand.
I see it because
even when life takes the light away,
someone always seems
to carry a match.
Sometimes
I am that someone.
Sometimes
I am the darkness.
Sometimes
I am both.
And perhaps
that is what God wants,
not perfection,
but a person
who can walk through hell
without becoming
a piece of it.
A person
who can look at the wreckage
and still kneel
to pick up something living.
A person
who can say,
“This hurt me,”
without saying,
“So I will hurt you.”
A person
who can stand beneath
a ruined sky
and still believe
the stars are somewhere
behind it.
That is the kind of faith
I understand.
Not the faith
that says nothing bad
will happen.
The faith
that says:
Something good
can still happen here.
Here.
In this hospital room.
In this empty house.
In this unanswered prayer.
In this failed marriage.
In this lonely winter.
In this body
that is getting older.
In this heart
that has been broken
more than once.
Here.
Not after everything
gets better.
Not when the wounds
become beautiful.
Here,
while the blood
is still warm,
while the tears
are still coming,
while the questions
are still unanswered.
Here,
someone is still kind.
Someone is still forgiving.
Someone is still planting.
Someone is still calling home.
Someone is still holding
the door open.
And maybe God
doesn't always speak
from the sky.
Maybe sometimes
He speaks through
the person who has every reason
to become bitter
and chooses,
somehow,
to remain gentle.
© 2026 Gloria Penelope
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