I think the nearest illustration I can give about ministering at the jail is this:

Imagine a tender-hearted woman who volunteers at the Humane Society. She cannot pass a stray without kneeling; she cannot hear a whimper without her chest tightening. She has carried home more abandoned puppies than she can count, pressing their trembling bodies against her own as though her warmth alone could mend what the world has broken. She would stand like a shield between any creature and cruelty.

Then one cold afternoon in the country, a farmer tells her he has seen a litter of seven puppies—half-starved, shivering in a bramble bush, abandoned by their mother. “They won’t last the night,” he says. “They’re all alone.”

Her heart lurches her blood turns to ice. She can almost feel their thin ribs beneath her fingers before she has even seen them. “Take me,” she pleads. “Please—before it’s too late.”

They climb into his truck. The engine roars, gravel spits, and she grips the dashboard as if every second were a heartbeat slipping away. When they finally find them, it is worse than she imagined. Seven small bodies tangled in thorns. Eyes too big for their gaunt faces. Ribs sharp as birdcages. They do not bark. They only stare—afraid even of rescue.

She kneels in the dirt. She speaks softly. One by one, she gathers them into her arms. They resist at first, stiff with distrust, but then—one fragile surrender at a time—they lean into her. The truck ride back is filled with quiet whimpers and the faintest flicker of hope. At the shelter, the veterinarian begins the slow, sacred work of healing: cleaning wounds, warming cold bodies, coaxing them back toward life.

That is the scene I walked into last night.

Except they were not puppies.

They were seven women—of every age and every color—each carrying the same haunted look in their eyes. At first, there were walls: practiced smiles, folded arms, silence that had learned how to survive. But when trust was earned and defenses lowered, the stories came out—haltingly at first, then in a flood. Stories of vicious assaults. Of unspeakable betrayals. Of childhoods starved of tenderness. Of homes where love never lived.

And beneath it all, the same trembling question those puppies carried: Is anyone coming for me?

To sit in that room was to kneel again in the bramble bush. To see ribs showing—not of the body, but of the soul. To realize how long they had shivered without warmth, how long they had learned not to hope.

I cannot explain what a privilege it is to speak words of hope into that kind of darkness. What an honor it is to watch a guarded face soften. What a blessing it is to see a woman, who has survived the tyranny of unloving caregivers and the brutality of broken men, begin—just barely—to believe that she is not abandoned.

There is a kind of holy work in that room. Not dramatic in noise, but in courage. Not loud in triumph, but in the quiet miracle of trust.

Last night, I did not rescue anyone. I simply knelt beside seven wounded hearts and reminded them they were not alone in the bramble anymore. And that, to me, is sacred beyond words.