Faith Of A Desperate Single Mom

He then took him from her bosom, carried him up to the loft where he was staying, and laid him on his bed. 20Then he prayed, "O GOD, my God, why have you brought this terrible thing on this widow who has opened her home to me? Why have you killed her son?"

21Three times he stretched himself out full-length on the boy, praying with all his might, "GOD, my God, put breath back into this boy’s body!" 22GOD listened to Elijah’s prayer and put breath back into his body--he was alive! 23Elijah picked the boy up, carried him downstairs from the loft, and gave him to his mother. "Here’s your son," said Elijah, "alive!"

24The woman said to Elijah, "I see it all now--you are a holy man. When you speak, GOD speaks--a true word!"

In this story we can see this mother went through a lot. She experienced a real roller-coaster of emotions didn’t she, famine in the land, almost dying of hunger, no husband to provide for her? A single mom with a son to feed? I know that’s tough for I have 3 sons to feed… It can be stressful! How do u think she feels?

Then she experienced the joyous providence of God when Elijah the prophet entered into the picture. She had food to eat. It was miraculous. Ah, joy! But suddenly her son took a turn for the worst. The boy couldn’t breathe, as if SARS had attacked him, he stopped breathing – he was dead. Her world just fell apart and v.18 speaks of her utter despair. Her hopes for the future is gone, she has no one left in her life – alone, afraid, with no backup plan, no life insurance, nothing! Perhaps she felt guilty of her sins – but most of all, it was just pure pain!

Don’t we react the same way, many times we ask Why? Even Elijah was confused (v.20) he probably was attached to the boy. After all he was a guest with them for many months. More than likely he stayed up nights with the boy, telling stories of God’s heroic deeds, horsing around with him. He lived with them, ate with them, spent time getting to know them. Then the boy died. What a shock! It seems to be purposeless, meaningless loss of a life! “O God my God, WHY…,”cried Elijah.

Yet, I submit to you, it is this type of faith that God’s looking for in the heart of a godless, faithless world we live in. This faith of a desperate single mom shines as a testament to all who claim they are spiritual, they are OK with God and yet do not truly bow before the Living God. Even in the NT, this single mom’s faith is mentioned as something that God Himself endorses. Let me read from Luke 4 (CEV), Jesus speaking to a crowd of worshippers in a Jewish church

25 Once during the time of Elijah there was no rain for three and a half years, and people everywhere were starving. There were many widows in Israel, 26 but Elijah was sent only to a widow in the town of Zarephath near the city of Sidon…

28 When the people in the meeting place heard Jesus say this, they became so angry 29 that they got up and threw him out of town. They dragged him to the edge of the cliff on which the town was built, because they wanted to throw him down from there. 30 But Jesus slipped through the crowd and got away.