Sunday Musings: Pain. Change. People. Love.

“If you would be loved, love.” — Seneca

Pain changes people. Always.
Sometimes it softens them. Sometimes it hardens them.
But it never leaves them the same.

People rarely change because they want to.
They change because pain forces them to: a loss, a failure, a truth they can’t ignore.

Change isn’t clean. It is messy, lonely, and uncomfortable.

It makes people withdraw,
question everything,
even push others away.
And that’s usually when we misunderstand them the most.

That’s where love matters, not the loud kind,
But the quiet one.

The love that doesn’t fix.
Doesn’t chase.
Just stays patient.

It respects distance.
It believes healing takes time.

Over the years, I have learned to stop asking,
“Why did they change?”
Instead, I ask,
“What did they go through?”

Because behind every change is a story of pain.
And behind every story of pain, a need for love.