Day 8: Miriam and Wanda Maximoff
And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God.
-Ephesians 6:17 AMP
Scriptures: Ephesians 6:17; Hosea 6:5-6; Exodus 16:20; Number 12:1-4, 6-8, 13-15
What does a helmet do? Most of us would say a helmet protects a person’s head. It definitely does that. There is another thing that it does too: encases a person’s head. That is how it protects the head, it encases the head. A helmet gives our head walls as barriers from external forces, but also to hold and support the head in harsh movements (moments or situations).
A helmet keeps things inside the head as it protects it. This is important to note because the scripture says a helmet of salvation. So that means the helmet is not only protecting the head with walls of salvation, but encasing salvation within the head as protection too. Which then leads to the careful handling of the sword of the Spirit which is the Word of God. Looking at our two warriors, Miriam and Wanda Maximoff we can see how the helmet, the encasement of salvation is needed and ties into use of the sword of the Spirit.
Miriam was Moses’ sister and a prophetess. Not only was she part of saving Moses’ life, she was part of praising God for the Israelites’ exodus from Egypt. She joined that exodus in the desert. So Miriam started out as what some people might say as a heroine. A heroine who brandished her sword, her mouth, in praise and victory.
A heroine to a people who complained, complained, murmured, and complained some more. The people left Egypt but they did not leave their victim status. There was always an enemy too big or scary, not enough food or water. A constant tension was among the people. Something was always wrong.
Maybe that is why, later on in the exodus, Miriam starts criticizing Moses. Judging not only him, but his leadership and his wife. Does not God speak through us too? That is what she tells Aaron. Yes, she does this criticizing with Aaron but guess who was listed first? Guess who was the one struck with leprosy and had to be left out of the camp? Her brothers begged for mercy for Miriam and Aaron even repented…yet we do not read about Miriam doing so. She simply spent her seven days away and came back and they moved on. There is nothing else from her. She went from praising God to criticizing the ones He chose to silence.
Wanda Maximoff, also known as the Scarlet Witch, did not start out as a hero. In either the comics or movies with her she is more of an anti-hero. She was the daughter of a villain in the comics. In the movies, she was a gifted child whose parents were killed by the weapons of another before she was captured to train her abilities.
Wanda’s abilities deal with chaos magic, psychic energy, and especially in reading or manipulating the thoughts and emotions of others. There are many more things she can do. She is a powerful woman. That power, the intoxication of it, the fear of it, those are difficult and constant things for her to battle in the comics. In the movies, not only does she have to battle the struggle of her power, she has to battle with her own grief.
That battle with grief even blinds her to the reality of the harm of her actions. In Doctor Strange: Multiverse of Madness, Wanda sees herself as a grieving mother. While she knows what people have labeled her as, to her it is not fair because of what she has lost. If one person’s actions justified their means, why not hers?
She is not trying to be a scary villain that kills multiple people or be slowly consumed by darkness. She is just trying to get her kids back, ease the pain of her loss. In easing that pain, she is blind to what she is doing until the children she is trying to reach recoil away from her after she threatens them.
Wanda finally sees what she has become, with a pointy headpiece and everything, she has become the Scarlet Witch, the Harbinger of Chaos, the villain. She does, in a way, redeem herself in the end but a major part of that redemption was leaving behind the children she sought with their real mother. Letting those children go and accepting the pain of loving her children who are not there. Then despite that storm of pain, she did the right thing.
There are storms and situations of grief, sorrow, anger, anxiety, despair, or darkness drowning our world. You may see these situations in your own life or the lives of others. Whether you are in a situation or see it, that affects your mind. As seen with our warriors, they were powerful women but their hardest battles were not against a foe, but their own visions.
Miriam’s discontentment and maybe even envious vision of her brother fed by the constant complaining she was hearing. She let the poison of the environment around her seep in, turning her praise into criticizing. Wanda loved her children and was tired of losing the people she loved. When there was a way to get them back, she took it, even if it made her what she fought so hard not to be.
In the waves of life, on the battlefield, it can be so easy to trade the helmet of salvation for another helmet. To let our feelings, wants, expectations, comfortability, fears, or whatever else encase our thoughts instead of God. Though, when your head is not encased in God, how will you wield His sword?
God knows the power of the tongue. He made it. He tells us multiple times that only He can tame it, not us. Yet, if we are blinded and deafened by whatever helmet we have chosen to wear (that is not the helmet of salvation), God has to get through those walls first. Though He always has a way of getting our attention.
He wants us to be strong warriors. He also wants us to be safe. That is why He gives us the hope and comfort of His salvation. That is why He does not blind us with His goodness and grace but He opens our eyes. He heals and corrects us in love because He is love. He wants His love for us in our minds just as much as we want it to protect us.
That does not mean we will never get hurt. Protection is not about avoiding pain. Protection helps us keep our place in spite of the pain and blows. Protection encases us as things come and weathers the storm with us. No matter what we do or wear, the pain, the blows will come. God is there when those blows come, and warrior, He wants to be your protection and encase you in His love. We just need to take off the way we know/feel/see and choose to put on His Salvation, choose God’s way.
Something Good 