The Little Maid: In The Days Of King Jehoram

The Little Maid

Greetings little one, have you ever done something for someone, but they never notice? They don’t bother to say thank you? How does that make you feel? Do you think to yourself, I’m never going to help that person anymore? What would you do if this was you in this story? In the days of king Jehoram, Naaman captain of the Syrian army, raided the land of Israel and captured a little girl and brought her to Syria. This little girl was given the job of serving Naaman’s wife. Imagine little one, that strangers much less an army, came to your country. Surrounded your town or village, came into your house, maybe kill some of your family members and then capture you and take you away to be a servant forever in a foreign land. How would you feel? Would you want to do the best job you could for Mrs. Naaman? In fact, would you want to tell them at all about the God you served?
Well as the story goes in 2 Kings 5, captain Naaman as great and mighty as he was in battle, ended up with leprosy.
This was a terrible disease with sores on the skin. It could destroy the nerve endings in the hands and feet causing loss of feeling which makes the fingers and the toes start to cut away from the body until they just fall off, leaving the person deformed. Leprosy can also affect the nose, throat and eyes and can lead to paralysis and gangrene. Plus it could spread easily to other people. Wow, no wonder Naaman was very nervous about his problem. He was rich and had the best doctors that money could buy, but there was no cure to be found in the world. Naaman felt hopeless, even Mrs. Naaman knew that soon her husband must leave her forever. One day Mrs. Naaman had a conversation with her little maid, maybe she talked about the latest news from the doctors. How they had told Naaman how much longer he could live among people, before he had to leave his home, family and job behind and go live with the other lepers until he
died. On hearing this, without hesitating the little maid told her mistress, ‘Would God my lord were with the prophet that is in Samaria! for he would recover him of his leprosy. Now Mrs. Naaman on hearing this, hope sprang up in her heart and she ran off to tell her husband what the little maid had said. News came to the king of Syria who gave Naaman permission to go seek for help in the land of Israel. The story ended with Naaman being healed of leprosy. Nowhere else in the bible had anyone ever been healed of this disease until the time of Jesus. Little one, Naaman was not even a Christian, yet because of what God did for Him, beginning with the little maid, he gave his heart to God.

Now, what if that little maid had said to herself, hmm! serve Naaman right to have leprosy, that is God paying him back for troubling Israel, for capturing me and making me into a slave. Yes, die, die you dog! No friend, this little maid was true to the God she served, when she heard about her master, she felt sorry for him, and remembering the miracles that the prophet Elisha had done, she knew he could heal Naaman through the power of the God of heaven. Because of what the little maid did, a life was saved for Christ. We don’t know what happened to the little maid after, but she did what was right for Jesus. Will you be helpful for Jesus too little one and do your best, no matter how people hurt you? Matt 5:12 Rejoice, and be exceeding glad: for great is your reward in heaven.