When Butterflies Return

For the past several weeks, butterflies have been following me everywhere.

Yellow butterflies. White butterflies.

Following me across Costa Rica, Chicago, and places I never expected.

At first I thought it was a coincidence…then I realized they are my reminders.

Because a butterfly is proof that G-D designed transformation into creation itself.

A caterpillar doesn’t become a butterfly overnight. It goes into complete surrender. Everything it once was dissolves before it becomes what it was always meant to be…G-Ds glory.

Maybe that’s what redemption looks like.

I came home from Costa Rica convinced that redemption isn’t something we wait for. It’s something we actively participate in.

For a week I watched women from different generations and different walks of life become sisters. Walls came down. Hearts opened. Pain became healing. We stopped trying to impress one another and started truly seeing one another.

I left believing something simple…every human being carries a DIVINE spark.

Sometimes it’s shining brightly. Sometimes it’s buried beneath trauma, addiction, shame, fear, or the worst decision they’ve ever made.

Our job is to help uncover it. That realization has followed me home.

This week I’ve found myself making phone calls across Illinois and not for myself, not for someone in my family or  community. I was making endless phone calls for someone I barely knew yet care deeply for.

Her name is Colleen Hightower.

I met Colleen through one of the most extraordinary Christian Zionist communities I’ve ever encountered, Quentin Road Baptist Church.

I first met Pastor Scudder, the Pastor of Quinton Rd, shortly after October 7. In a room filled with diplomats and Jewish leaders, everyone was talking about the attacks. Pastor Scudder was the only non-Jewish person there, and the only one who kept bringing the conversation back to G-D.

That moment stayed with me.

It became the beginning of a beautiful friendship between our communities. Together we’ve celebrated Shabbat. They’ve welcomed October 7 survivors. They displayed the faces of every hostage until they came home. They have stood with the Jewish people not because they had to, but because they believe G-D called them to.

Through that friendship, I met Colleen.

She shared the story of her husband, Charles A. Hightower.

Charles made a devastating mistake. Alcohol played a role. People were seriously hurt. He has never hidden from that truth. He accepted responsibility. He chose sobriety. He has spent years rebuilding his life from the inside out, mentoring others, earning the respect of correctional officers, pastors, and everyone who has witnessed his transformation. Hundreds of people have written letters supporting his clemency because they have seen the man he has become.

Listening to Colleen, I realized something.

This wasn’t simply about one family. It was about REDEMPTION.

Do we actually believe people can change?

If we believe in therapy, and recovery, and healing, and teshuva, and GD…then somewhere in those truths we have to believe that transformation is real.

Otherwise, what are we working toward?

The more I think about it, the more I realize that maybe redemption isn’t only about ourselves.

Maybe redemption is about reaching into someone else’s darkness and helping uncover the spark that never disappeared.

Maybe it’s Jews and Christians standing together. Maybe it’s Black and Jewish communities rebuilding trust. Maybe it’s women healing women.

Maybe it’s helping bring a father home to his son.

Maybe that’s how redemption enters the world.

One relationship. One act of compassion. One restored family. One Divine spark at a time.

Today, I have one request.

If you know someone in Governor JB Pritzker’s office, or anyone connected to Illinois’ clemency process, I ask you to respectfully share the clemency petition of Charles A. Hightower and encourage a careful review of his case.

Justice and accountability matter and TRANSFORMATION matters too.

A wife has been waiting. A son has been waiting. A community has been waiting.

Maybe that’s why the butterflies keep appearing.

Not because they’re following me. But because they’re reminding me that G-D built redemption into the fabric of creation.

The caterpillar isn’t erased. It’s transformed. And perhaps our calling is to become the kind of people who help one another spread our wings wide, leave the cocoon behind, and find the courage to fly.