Crowns of Beauty

The thick brown grasses of June swayed in the cool morning breeze as I made my way up the mountain. Tangled bunches of my long blond hair whipped my face, eventually finding their resting place in the corner of my mouth. Dense dust settled between my teeth like sandpaper, and my abdomen tensed with hunger pangs. I had wept through the night, but the morning had come with promise.

Tears trickled down my face as the brisk air enveloped my weary eyes. My quadriceps burned deeply, almost as if they had been set ablaze by the climb, and my gaze was fixed optimistically on the nearing plateau. It was a Thursday, the second-to-last day of a rural orphan outreach I was on, and I could feel Jesus near me. I knew it wouldn’t be long before many feet, big and small, would make their way up this mountain. I had heard Jesus’s voice, and based on the warfare I had endured in the night, I knew He wanted to release a beautiful and unprecedented freedom. I was certain that Jesus was going to shake up the dust, destroy strongholds, deliver the demon-possessed, and unleash a wild and untouchable freedom. And freedom that comes from Jesus’s hand is always stunning.

I reached the plateau and sat down on the hard, dry ground. I pulled out a long, thin rag and tied up my hair, imagining the yanking my scalp would have to endure at dusk. I focused on catching my breath and steadying my posture and my spirit before the Lord.

Images of the children who I knew would be coming flooded my mind, and I saw deep strongholds called out by a tender God. I envisioned an army of angels coming to set a seal over the mountain, and I believed that Jesus would reach down from on high to touch us.

Soon small ebony frames made their way up the hill. My eyes had once been weary, but now they felt different. A subtle and precious confidence settled into my depths as I watched these broken ones draw near.

Today had already been paid for.

She hadn’t said but two words the entire week. I had met her four days earlier, but not once had she cracked a smile or allowed herself to relax. She wore a jean skirt and mismatched shoes with layered white socks beneath. Her thirteen-year-old eyes looked aged and weary, and her sunken posture reflected a history I couldn’t imagine. As I looked at her face, uniquely striking and round, the artist in me saw canvas for an infectious smile.

But she was on lockdown.

Beauty is often locked behind bars.

Each day as I went out to share the Word, this girl would come to hear but then get up and walk away. She would wander for a while, apparently aimless, and return to sit back down. Any mention of Jesus caused her to leave again. She wouldn’t sing. She wouldn’t play games. She wouldn’t let me give her a hug and wouldn’t even take a cup of cold water from my hands. Pain marked her.

The nights were long on this visit to rural Zambia. Every dark hour, as I rested within the unfinished mudded walls of what passed for a house, my spirit landed on her face. Her plight and her bondage became the agonizing groan of my spirit, and I wondered if she was possessed by demons. I wasn’t certain, but if she was, I knew it wasn’t her fault. I didn’t want to make any assumptions, so I continued to pray and to ask for discernment. I thrashed in my bed with searing pains in my back, and a horrifying chill swept through the room. Jesus’s heart was obviously set on clothing her in freedom, but the garments He paid for don’t always show up on our runways.