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“A bruised reed he will not break” (Isaiah 42:3).

Our Norwegian Forest cat Mystique, who has long impossibly soft, black fur and big, yellow eyes, is a little princess. She loves cuddles, belly rubs, getting brushed, and falling asleep on my lap every evening (also picking fights with our other cat Heathcliff whenever he gets the attention she craves). She’s so at home in her life with my husband and me that it’s sometimes easy to forget what she was like when I first met her years ago as an underweight, malnourished street cat with tangled fur. She was too skittish to be touched, just brave enough to beg for food that she’d eat while keeping a cautious eye out for any threat coming too close.

I shy away from truly expressing my feelings. Which people who know me would question, because I don’t think anyone would call me “emotionally reserved.” I cry most days—good cries, happy cries, grateful cries, excited cries, and of course, sad cries, too. But despite how many feelings I show on the outside—I have a zillion and ten more that I stuff down and keep inside.