The Widow of Zaraphath

I've been attending a Bible study on the prophet Elijah by Priscilla Shirer at my church.  We have the workbooks and are watching a video each week.  

Last week our lessons were about the widow of Zarephath (1 Kings 17).   This is the passage where Elijah appears in her village and finds her gathering brush to build a fire.  He has been in the wilderness for 18 months or so at this point and I can't imagine what that poor widow must have thought when he appeared and asked for a 'little water' in the midst of a three-year drought... 

I know what she thought when he asked for food as well, though, because the Bible tells us.  I'm paraphrasing of course, but she told him, "I've just enough flour and oil to make a small cake for my son and I to share and then we will die."   What came across most strongly to me at that reading was how weary she must have been.  Hungry, frightened, tired beyond words, worried.  It wasn't just the flour barrel that was running on empty!

The widow's son was not yet old enough to help his mother.  He was a mere child, one who still required care.  And she was living in a time and place that had little use for widows.   A woman without a husband and a son old enough to work on her behalf was almost certainly relegated to poverty if they had little property and had had only a little income from a man's work.  With no husband, there was likely no income.  In the midst of a drought, an economic crisis was bound to occur anyway.  How weary she must have been of trying to stretch what she had, trying to get just a bit more.  All the work of the household and livelihood of the family was on her shoulders.  With a drought she couldn't grow any grain and there was none to be gleaned in the fields.  We might assume that any small livestock holding she had was long gone.  One by one, she'd watched as every single thing that might constitute some security in her life were subtracted from her.  No husband.  No income.  No livestock.  No water for a garden.  No grain to glean in the fields.  No more provision.   She must have been working tirelessly for quite a long time and now this strange and dirty man asked to have a share of the last bit of food she had.  

Can I tell you something?  I identified strongly with that widow at the beginning of this week's Bible study.  I'm supposed to be figuring out how this season of life is my Elijah moment, but it wasn't Elijah with whom I identified.  I felt kinship with that widow!   

No, my life is not hard as hers, not like what this young widow was facing.  My life is stressed at the moment in various ways but it's normal life stressors, the sort that come and go in season.   But it seemed that with the world at large out of control, and alarmists raising the call for us to prep, and the world within my little family circle all struggling at once for my time and attention, that I simply hadn't an ounce of energy to do a thing more to improve, help, or restore my personal situation much less anyone else's.    I wasn't sleeping well and how many of you know how wearing not sleeping enough is?  There were constant demands upon my time, my finances and my person to provide something more.  I had a 'handful of flour and a bit of oil' left of myself to give to all those asking.  It. was. not. enough.  Not for me and certainly not enough for anyone else!

So yes, I fully identified with the widow at the beginning of last week's study.   When we were reading the passage of I Kings 17 and the group leader read, "Then we shall die," I sensed the soul wearying tiredness that the widow felt.  I also sensed that death was not the worst thing she had faced.  In fact, death looked a lot like freedom to her in that moment of time.   So much so that when Elijah told her to not be afraid but to make a little cake for him also, she did it.  No argument.  It only meant that death was that much nearer if she shared and had even less, so she did it.  Freedom was just around the corner for her and her son.  Her struggle was nearly over.

That's the part of the study we went through this past week and that's where my own head was as I read the beginning passages for the study this past week.  I actually wrote in my booklet that I simply didn't see what God was trying to show me about Elijah and I asked God to help me see why this study module was even important at all in my own life.  "But this widow...God I know this woman!"  

One thing the widow had was fear.  She had to let go of the fear she'd been living with for so long.    Fear had been her companion, the partner in her bed at night, the one who walked beside her when she was gathering what brush she could find, the one who peered over her shoulder when she looked into that flour jar and jug of oil, the one who whispered constantly in her ear... 

And that was what I'd been walking with for far longer this year than I want to share.  Fear had become bigger and badder,  as this year went on, when I didn't see how what we were required to do could be done, nor where the resources were, and fear has been loud in my ear like a drill sergeant every step of the way since. Fear had become attached to my spirit, and I was so caught up with it, I didn't even know how deep I'd gone.   But Monday when I was reading that last module and started reading the multiples of verses given in which the first words were "Do not fear", "Don't be afraid", "Be courageous", I felt something in me start in recognition.  

I'd grown afraid.  I'd grown afraid of what might happen to further bring down our finances.  I'd grown afraid of who else might need a portion of my time.  I'd grown afraid of not sleeping at night.  I'd grown afraid of not having enough of anything required.  And as I read those verses and continued to read them, I felt something rise in my spirit that wasn't fear.  It was the knowledge I'd been focused in all the wrong places.  It was the acknowledgement that fear had become such a familiar that I'd no longer fought against it but just accepted each new fear as it came upon me.  

Instead, I needed to look at what I had and trust that it would be enough.  I needed to trust that I was already given all I needed for this moment.  For now.  And that tomorrow, I'd have enough for that day, as well.  Enough money, enough food, enough time, enough sleep, enough love, enough patience.  I already had enough.

That's something the widow learned as well. After feeding Elijah and her son and herself, she found she had more flour and more oil.  It didn't run out.  There was enough.  And when she went back to the bowl the next day, there was enough flour for that day as well.   

I'm going to ask a few questions here that might seem unusual but only because they do apply to me so very much at present...  

Did the widow see the blessing in that additional bit of flour and oil?  Did she see provision when she looked at the strange man the next day?  She had no way of knowing her supply would last until the drought ended and new crops were in the ground.  Did it look like a blessing to her at first?  Or was it merely that it looked like one more day to struggle through?  

At what point did it occur to her that the flour wasn't running out?  That the oil continued to flow?  That sharing food with this stranger didn't bring death closer but somehow kept pushing it further away.   Did she find freedom in the idea of living as much as she'd found freedom in the idea of death as day after day went on and she was able to feed her household?   

Let me ask another question:  At what point did the widow suddenly find hope had taken root deep within her?  Because at some point she had to acknowledge that the season of despair and hopelessness had passed.  

I have to ask these questions because, you see, there's more to the widow's story.  There came a day when her son died.   The last remnant of her husband's genetic line.  Her only child.  The child she loved deeply and dearly. The son she had without a doubt pinned all of her future hopes upon.   Because a son was salvation, in a way.

Elijah was known as a man of God to this woman.  God had commanded her to take care of Elijah.  And even though this woman didn't know God before Elijah, God knew her.   She saw the provision God made because of her care of Elijah.   Something in her soul had begun to stir.  Something like hope must have begun to grow within her. 

But when her son died, she was more than grief stricken.  She was soul stricken.  Had she truly come out of the deepest poverty she'd ever known, had she actually allowed herself to believe she and her son were safe, saved, only to lose the one thing that had true value to her: the child?  You can almost hear the despair in her wail, "You have come to bring my sin to remembrance and cause the death of my son!"

 Her son's death was no punishment for her past. God hadn't used her past against her when He called her to serve Elijah.    God had provided food.  He had sustained her life.  Now He used Elijah to bring back her son from the very depths of death.

 I've felt at times as though I were being tested beyond my endurance.  I've wondered if somehow my past sin has caused a difficult season.  Then I remember something that has settled deep within my soul:  In His all-transforming love, our sins are so far cast away that it is truly that they not only no longer exist, but they also never were.  We might recall what we were before God came to us in the midst of our sin, others might be all too willing to remind us of what we were once upon a time, but not God.  God was only sealing the widow's future testimony in her present situation.  It's true that my current season of life, my few trials, are minor compared to the circumstances this poor widow faced.  But I don't mind saying that I have been angry at times at the situations I must go through as part of my future testimony. I, too, have questioned God.  

And it's okay.  God isn't going to go off in a snit and quit.  He knows we're going to doubt and struggle, and that fear is sometimes going to sit down with us and stay for a long while before we remember we don't have to live with fear.  We can throw it out and close the door in its face.

That's what I've done this week as I concluded this study.  I'm pushing fear out of the door. I'm going to remind myself that God will provide.  I'm going to remember that this too is a season and there are things to savor.  There's no rush to go through this time, just take it slowly and let it be what it is, even in it's unabashed messiness.  And somehow, in doing that, I hope that Grace will grow within me.