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DAILYREFLECTION
The believers are but brothers.
Over the past two weeks, we've talked about positivity and consistency—the foundation and the scaffolding of friendship. But you can be positive and consistent with someone for years and still feel completely alone with them.
The missing piece is vulnerability.
Most of us avoid this one. We're greatand being pleasant. But when it comes to actually letting people see us?
We freeze.
Vulnerability isn't just trauma-dumping your deepest shame. It's learning to share the full spectrum of your life.
You can only feel loved if you feel known. And you can only feel known if you let yourself be seen.
Think about your friendships right now. How many of them exist purely on the surface? You laugh together, you show up consistently, but you've never told them what you're actually afraid of. Or what you're proud of. Or what you need from them.
That's why you can be surrounded by people and still feel lonely.
We've built foundations with dozens of people but never climbed higher. We stay comfortable at the bottom because going up requires risk.
You can't shortcut intimacy. You can't meet someone and immediately audition them for "best friend" status based on compatibility checklists. Depth doesn't come from finding the right person. It comes from doing the work with someone already in your life.
So if you're feeling lonely, the answer isn't adding more people. It's choosing someone you already know and moving them up. Sharing more. Asking for more. Risking more.
You don't discover best friends. You build them.
Reflect On This
What scares you more: sharing your struggles or sharing your successes? Why do you think that is?
Share your reflections in the poll at the end of the email.
WATERMELONWATCH
A Palestinian man waves from a window as war-wounded people and patients, accompanied by relatives, get ready to leave Gaza for treatment abroad through the Rafah border crossing between Gaza and Egypt, after it was opened by Israel on Monday for a limited number of people, in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip.
Rafah crossing reopened for limited medical evacuations, with the WHO confirming the first small group of patients and companions leaving Gaza for treatment. Even this narrow opening is giving families a concrete pathway to care, and a bit of breathing room amid a shattered health system.
Patients remain in limbo as the “pilot” reopening stays tightly restricted, leaving many of the most urgent cases still waiting. Yet medical teams and relatives continue organizing documentation, transport, and support networks so each rare exit becomes a lifeline for more than one person.
Aid groups warn that new access requirements and suspensions are constricting operations, including MSF refusing to hand over staff lists they say could endanger teams. At the same time, humanitarian workers are holding the line on protecting colleagues while trying to keep clinics and emergency care running for civilians.
QURANCORNER
فَجَعَلَهُمْ كَعَصْفٍ مَّأْكُولٍ
“And made them like eaten straw.”
Faja‘alahum ka-‘aṣfin ma’kūl
"Ka-‘aṣfin ma’kūl": Like chewed straw, an image of total ruin. Their bodies and ranks were left like trampled, digested plant matter, worthless and destroyed.