“Now there was a little slave girl who worked for Naaman and she knew someone who could help him. But there was a problem; Naaman was her enemy. Not long before, Naaman had led an army raid on her home in Israel. He had killed her whole family, carried her off to Syria, and made her into his slave. Every night she cried herself to sleep – she had lost everything. Why would she, of all people, want to help Naaman? Didn’t she hate him and want to hurt him back? Didn’t she want to make him pay for all the wrong he’d done? That’s what you would expect, but instead of hating him, she loved him. Instead of hurting him back, she forgave him.”

Naaman was general of the army under the king of Aram. He was important to his master, who held him in the highest esteem because it was by him that God had given victory to Aram: a truly great man, but afflicted with a grievous skin disease. It so happened that Aram, on one of its raiding expeditions against Israel, captured a young girl who became a maid to Naaman’s wife. One day she said to her mistress, “Oh, if only my master could meet the prophet of Samaria, he would be healed of his skin disease.”

2 Kings 5

I am following my friend Amanda’s Advent Stitch-A-Long. You can find instructions for today’s ornament here. Prep instructions by Amanda are here.

The book used for the Advent reading is The Jesus Storybook Bible. You can find more information the book here or buy it on Amazon here.