10/01/2026
A REFLECTION FOR THE WORLD.
There is something I keep noticing under the sun in the world we are living in now.
When people leave a relationship, an organization, a church, or a circle of people, there is often a silent expectation attached to their departure.
An unspoken thought that says: “The next time I see you, you should look worse.”
Beggarly. Struggling. Reduced.
Almost as if their leaving must come with punishment.
And when that doesn’t happen, when the person looks fine, healed, peaceful, or even doing better, another reaction rises. A quiet need to prove something. To display growth. To project success. To say without words, “When you were with me, I wasn’t like this. Now I am better.”
As though life itself must take sides.
As though someone’s progress must validate another person’s worth.
It is strange when you really sit with it.
This idea that if someone leaves you, they must decline for your value to remain intact.
That their struggle would somehow prove you were right, good, or necessary.
But where did this thinking come from?
Why do we secretly wish that someone who walked away should look helpless the next time we meet, so we can point and say, “If you had stayed, this wouldn’t have happened to you”?
That thought is not strength.
It is wounded pride trying to heal itself through comparison.
Because if your presence was truly life-giving, it would not need another person’s downfall to be proven.
And if your value was solid, it would not depend on someone else’s suffering.
The truth is this:
Someone doing well without you does not erase your worth.
And someone struggling without you does not confirm it.
Life is not a courtroom where outcomes decide who was right.
People can leave and still grow.
People can stay and still break.
And sometimes, separation is not failure, it is simply honesty.
Maybe the real maturity is not hoping someone looks worse without us,
but being at peace whether they do or not.
That thought alone should make us pause.
