If we react with more emotion than is appropriate for an isolated incident, it's probably not so isolated. The escalated emotion of this situation is probably an indication of painful ties to the past.

Some prisons don't require bars to keep people locked inside.

What numbs us imprisons us.

Trauma isn't just something that happens to you. It happens in you

There is much in life that is complicated and beyond our understanding, but the basic principles of human liberty are not so complicated, and if we hold to them, we will find a way to correct our mistakes and set a true course

Yet nothing can to nothing fall, Nor any place be empty quite; Therefore I think my breast hath all Those pieces still, though they be not unite; And now, as broken glasses show A hundred lesser faces, so My rags of heart can like, wish, and adore, But after one such love, can love no more.

Jesus' disciples are not people lacking resources, but they are poor because they belong to this people under the oppressive and demoralizing dominion of a foreign power (e.g., Lk 6:20). They are indeed thus poor in spirit (Mt 5:3). Jesus does not focus on a concern for the poor in the sense of people who lacked resources.

For after years of living in a cage, a lion no longer even believes it is a lion . . . and a man no longer believes he is a man.

the reason there are so many struggling women is because there were so many wounded girls.

And so, dear heart, it is time for your restoration. For there is One greater than your Enemy. One who has sought you out from the beginning of time. He has come to heal your broken heart and restore your feminine soul. Let us turn now to him.

Father, what did I miss here, in this stage? Did I know I was the beloved son? Do I believe it even now? Come to me, in this place, over these years. Speak to me. Do I believe you want good things for me? Is my heart secure in your love? How was my young heart wounded in my life as a boy? And Jesus, you who came to heal the broken heart, come to me here. Heal this stage in my heart. Restore me as the beloved son. Father me.

We interpret Jesus through our brokenness. A painful truth, but also a hopeful truth. Maybe we can open up the doors and windows we didn't know we closed.