It is a remarkable story of how Jesus set a captive free, both spiritually and physically, and restored a mother to her son.

In 2004, Amanda Rector gave birth to her second son, Hunter. Having already given up her first son, Jameson, it was not surprising that Amanda, who was a heroin addict, saw Hunter removed from her care, as he was born addicted to opioids, the Daily Mail reports.

She returned to the hospital a few days later, because of an infection her boyfriend had developed from injecting Heroin into his arm. She decided to take the elevator up to the maternity ward with hopes of seeing her son one last time.

“I could see my reflection in the shiny door and it was as distorted as my life was,” Amanda wrote on her blog. “I was undernourished, not clean, and still wore the clothes that were entirely too big on me.”

When she arrived, the nurse remembered Amanda and allowed her to see Hunter, who would be adopted four months later by a local family.

“I was already staring down at you in your crib. You were so perfect. How could anything this perfect come from me? I started to talk to you, in a whisper,‘ Amanda wrote.

“I’m sorry. I am so sorry for this. I am so sorry. You deserve a much better mother than I can be right now.”

‘I wanted out of that room, and out of that hospital, as soon as possible. You see, something happened in that moment that caused me the worse pain I had ever felt. The ice around my heart, it thawed. It thawed and tears were the result and the piercing clarity of losing [Hunter] hit me like a train,’ Amanda added.

You would think at this point, that Amanda had reached the bottom of the barrel, but she had more to go.

Two years later she was sentenced to five years in jail, because of her involvement in an armed robbery.

But on her first day in prison she accepted Jesus Christ into her heart as she became involved in the prison’s 12-step program.

This was the start of Amanda being set free from both her addiction and physical captivity. She told today.com, that she became involved in everything positive at prison to change her life..

Because of her remarkable transformation, she was released half way through her sentence. In the days leading up to her release, she sent a letter to Hunter’s parents telling them, that though they were going to the same church as her father, that she would be attending a different church to avoid causing problems.

Once out prison, she regained the guardianship of Jameson. Because Hunter was now adopted, she kept her distance, But Amanda saw Hunter at a cancer fundraiser that she attended with her son Jameson.

She pointed out Hunter who had just started dancing to the music playing in the background.

“We just stood there like creepers and watched him for the duration of the song, ‘I felt a peace come over me. It was as if God was saying, “He’s dancing. He’s happy,’” Amanda wrote.

Fourteen years later, she was at Walmart with her now 22-year-old son, Jameson. A few minutes later she noticed him speaking to a teenage girl. Her name was Bella. She was Hunter’s girlfriend and with Hunter standing nearby, she introduced herself to Jameson.

A few months earlier, Hunter, 18, decided he wanted to find out more about his mother and discovered who she was.

When Amanda walked up, Hunter approached his mother and gave her a long hug.

“I had just been talking about wanting to meet Amanda and then she appeared,” Hunter recalled in an interview with Today.com.

“If I wasn’t God centered, I don’t believe any of this would have happened,” he added.

They exchanged numbers and sent a few texts back and forth, but nothing serious followed from that brief meeting.

The next time Amanda ran into Hunter was at church four weeks later. He had decided to go to a different church than he and his adoptive parents attended. It just happened to be the same church Amanda was attending.

‘About a month later, we ran into each other at church, and I thought I recognized her, but I got into my car and drove away. But, God told me to turn around,’ Hunter said in an interview with the Daily Mail.

‘I pulled up next to her and told her that I was ready to talk and we made plans to meet back at the church the next night.’

Amanda who has now been drug free for 17 years works as a peer counselor for those with substance abuse and now sees Hunter at least once a week.

Though we often focus on Jesus’ healing ministry through the Gospels, what we often miss is Christ’s promise to break people free from their addictions and emotional pain.

Luke writes that shortly after Jesus temptation in the wilderness, He spoke at a synagogue in Nazareth, where the Lord pulled out a scroll and quoted from Isaiah 61:1:

“The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me,
Because He has anointed Me
To preach the gospel to the poor;
He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted,
To proclaim liberty to the captives
And recovery of sight to the blind,
To set at liberty those who are oppressed; (Luke 4:18 NKJV).

This was to be the Lord’s ministry.

But notice how Jesus said He was sent to heal the brokenhearted. We are not talking about physical healing in its strictest sense, but rather emotional healing.

This sets the tone for the remainder of this verse as Jesus was also sent to proclaim liberty to the captives and set free those who are oppressed.

Again, Jesus was not talking about people being released from brick and mortar prisons or the Jews being released from their Roman oppression, the Lord was talking about freedom in a spiritual and emotional sense.