A Voice in the Wind has had four covers over the last twenty years. The first depicted characters Atretes, Hadassah and Marcus. The second was dark blue and had a faint shadow of Roman columns behind the large print title. The third is maroon and black with Hadassah praying in the center. The last cover, and my personal favorite (painted by Robert Papp), has Hadassah standing before the arena. She is beautiful.
In the book, Hadassah is very plain. Like Jesus as described in Isaiah, there is nothing physically beautiful about her that would commend her to anyone. I wanted Hadassah to be an ordinary, rather plain girl, who becomes extraordinary in the hands of God. Jesus’ beauty wasn’t as the world defines beauty. He is beautiful because of Who He IS: God incarnate; Love personified, the Creator of true life.
To me, the last cover of A Voice in the Wind shows how Hadassah might look to those who loved her and saw Christ in her. Through her faith journey, she became beautiful, a light to others who couldn’t find their way. Because of that, she gained a beauty beyond what this world offers, a lasting beauty that reflects her Savior and Lord, Jesus Christ.
Hadassah is the kind of Christian I want to be when I grow up.