If a lioness spends her hours pacing back and forth in a cage of gold with the finest meats at her disposal, does that make her any less of a prisoner? If that same feline’s fangs are filed down to blunt, un-tearing teeth and her roar is silenced, can she still be called a lioness?

For a brief moment the previous day, I’d felt a flicker of kinship with him because of my own barrenness, but he brandished his brokenness like a sword, ready to cut anyone who displeased him because someone in Pharaoh’s household had once cut him.

The first sight I beheld when I first awakened was a pair of eyes filled with pure adoration and a joyful grin that shone more brightly than the afternoon sun. Though he hadn’t spoken a single word, I knew exactly who he was. He was my creator … my Lord … my God.

Friendship is just love that has yet to sprout wings and take flight.

Living in that castle was like being condemned to Hell before I’d even had the opportunity to sin.