There Is Always a Girl
2 Kings 5:1-4, 9-14
August 2, 2026
Every year, Naaman gets the headline. He's the "great man," the "mighty warrior," the commander whose name means "pleasant" even as his armies leave devastation in their wake. But tucked inside his story is someone the text never bothers to name: a girl, stolen from her home, who says one line and then disappears from the page. What happens when we let our attention rest on her instead?
The Man with the Pleasant Name
Naaman arrives in 2 Kings 5 with every credential that matters in his world. He is a commander in the army of Aram, Israel's neighbor and rival. He is called a "mighty warrior," a "great man," someone held in "high favor." He has, by every worldly measure, won.
But womanist scholar Dr. Wilda Gafney pushes back on that word "victory." Victory, she reminds us, is the language of the conqueror — never the conquered. What Naaman's people call victory, the people of Israel experienced as slaughter. Buried in that difference is an unnamed girl, taken captive in one of Naaman's raids and forced into service in his household.
The Girl the Text Won't Name
We don't know her name. Scripture doesn't think her significant enough to record it. She is a slave girl, torn from her family, made to serve the wife of the very man responsible for her captivity. And yet the whole story turns on her.
Rev. Dr. Jacqui Lewis has said it simply: there is always a girl. Dr. Gafney puts flesh on that claim, describing generation after generation of girls edited out of genealogies, erased from their own household stories, denied the dignity of a name — and still, somehow, present. As she writes:
On the page, between the lines, behind the story; there is always a girl.
In this story, she is a caged bird singing of a God whose power moves through a prophet named Elisha. And notice the quiet irony: the fierce warrior, the man with victories to his name, is utterly powerless to heal himself. He depends entirely on the wisdom of the girl he claims as property.
A Survival Tactic, Not Just a Kindness
The girl speaks exactly one line in this whole account: "If only my lord were with the prophet who is in Samaria! He would cure him of his skin disease." It's almost casual — the kind of comment designed to plant hope without demanding anything. She knows something her master cannot win in battle or negotiate at court, and she makes herself useful.
That usefulness isn't simply a virtue to admire; it's a survival strategy. Making oneself indispensable is a way the powerless reclaim agency inside a system built to deny them any. It's the same instinct that drove Esther to work the king's court, Rahab to bargain for her household's safety, and Shiprah and Puah to quietly defy Pharaoh's murderous decree. This unnamed girl stands in good company — women who understood how to use whatever leverage patriarchy allowed them in order to protect the vulnerable.
Why the Margins Matter
As a father of two young girls, this story matters to me in a particular way. I want them — and every girl like them — to know that their stories matter, their agency matters, their bodies and safety and dignity matter. This girl's name may be lost to history, but it was never lost to the God who parted the Jordan's waters for Naaman's healing.
Because there are girls listening — in our churches, our homes, our schools, our workplaces — to how the men around them talk about them. They deserve better than being treated as a plot device that exists only to point our attention toward someone else's story. And if we're willing to do the work of lifting back the text's layers, we find more of God's fingerprints in the margins: just a few verses later, it's Naaman's own servants — quite possibly women or girls themselves — who talk him down from his wounded pride and convince him to do exactly what the prophet said.
What the Healing Actually Cost
Naaman arrives at Elisha's house expecting ceremony and instead receives a curt instruction: go wash in the Jordan seven times. His ego is bruised — he wanted the prophet himself, the wave of a hand, the drama befitting his rank. Instead he's handed the muddy, unremarkable river he'd already called inferior to the waters back home.
Six times, nothing happens. By the seventh dip, soaked and humbled in front of the servants who talked him into it, something gives way. The real miracle in this story may not be the cleansing itself, but what it cost Naaman to get there: he had to let a slave girl, and his own servants, be right — and let himself be wrong — in front of everyone.
Let us give thanks, then, for the unnamed women and girls of this text. Let us give thanks for a God whose power moved not through the mighty warrior at the center of the story, but through those he only ever valued for how well they served him. And let us give thanks for a Christ whose Spirit keeps drawing our eyes toward the margins of scripture — where we are far more likely to find God than in the centers of power we build for ourselves.
Questions for Reflection
- Who are the "unnamed" people in your own life whose wisdom or courage made a difference, but whose names rarely get mentioned when the story is told?
- Where have you seen "making yourself useful" function as a survival strategy for someone with little power — and how did you respond to it?
- What would it look like for you to intentionally listen for God's voice in the margins of a familiar story, rather than at its center?
- Naaman had to let people he outranked be right, and himself be wrong, in front of everyone. When has humility like that been costly for you?
- Is there a girl or young person in your life who needs to hear, clearly and often, that her story, her body, and her voice matter?
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