Growing up in Kansas, I was proud to be from the land of Oz. It felt like a quiet distinction, something woven into the prairie wind and the wide, patient sky. The Wizard of Oz was the first television program I saw in color. One moment the world was muted and familiar, the next it opened into wonder. That early experience taught me something I would later learn to name as a therapist: perspective changes everything.

Now watching Wicked: For Good, I felt that same internal shift. Without revealing the events of the story, I was deeply moved by how the film portrays a paradigm shift of trauma. That shift is the very goal of good therapy. Not erasing the past. Not denying harm. But seeing the story clearly enough that truth has room to breathe.

The world has always been skilled at calling evil good and good evil. In the therapy room, a life story is gently revisited, not to rewrite facts, but to examine them from another vantage point. Through another person’s eyes. Through the lens of power, fear, misunderstanding, or longing. The hope is that something once hidden comes into view. And when that happens, the meaning of the story can change, even if the events themselves do not.

Near the end of Part Two, I felt on the verge of sobbing. I tried to restrain my tears, and in doing so my eyelids swelled and remained puffy until the next morning. My body responded before my mind could make sense of why.

I was moved by the belief that God did well in His design of the talents He entrusted to Cynthia Erivo portraying Elphaba Thropp, and Ariana Grande playing Galinda “Glinda” Upland. I was moved by the gifts given to makeup artists whose hands revealed the beloved Scarecrow with even more warmth and charm. I was moved by the skills and technology given to digital artists who carried us, quite literally, on the back of a broom through shadowed woods and rising hope.

I was moved by the glory of God expressed through imagination itself. Through L. Frank Baum, who first dreamed of Oz. Through Winnie Holzman and Dana Fox, who helped us see that dream again with greater compassion and depth. I was moved by what becomes possible when hundreds of people, whose names scroll quietly past in the credits, work together toward a common vision. They may not all know it, but God was glorified through the work of their hands.

That night, as my eyelids remained swollen from resisting the release my heart had been asking for, I learned something simple and true. It is good to feel what we need to feel. To weep when it’s time to weep. And it is good to honor what deserves celebration when people use their gifts and talents to create something that reflects beauty, truth, and redemption.

Some stories do not just entertain us. They help us see in color again. And sometimes, that is enough to quietly change the way we live.