The widow's faith

We’re on 1 Kings 17:7–24 in BSF. It’s a familiar story of Elijah and the widow, but I can’t seem to shake it this time. I usually hear people talk about this story in a way that somehow glosses over the depth of it, or fixes its eyes on Elijah's portion…but my considerations have been of the widow. I have been processing through why I can’t seem to move my heart past her and here is where I have landed in regards to why my heart reverberates with this widow and her walk:

Let me tell you this story in my own words. Elijah had been living near a brook during a drought and the Lord had been sustaining him in miraculous ways…until the brook dried up. Then the Lord sent him to another place with the assurance that He had “told a widow to feed him there.” So by faith, Elijah went where the Lord sent him, and there he found a widow, just as the Lord said. From a distance, he called out to her and asked her for something to drink, and the widow’s like, “I’ll go get you some water.” But then he asks for something to eat. And the widow recognizes that this is the man God sent for her to feed, and she says, ”Look, Man of God, I haven’t prepared for your coming or made you any bread. Do you want to know what I’ve chosen to do right now instead? Every day I’ve been watching my food supplies run out as I look into the face of my hungry son. Today I am on the very last of what I have, so I’m getting sticks to build a fire and have one last meal with my son before we die from lack.” Can’t you just hear the weariness in her words? But in that moment where she had run out of faith, Elijah brought enough for them both, and he said to her, “Do not fear. Go ahead and make that bread, but before you eat it with your son, give me a little portion first. Because here is the Lord’s promise to you, ‘The jar of flour shall not be spent, and the jug of oil shall not be empty, until the day that the Lord sends rain upon the earth.’” Basically, if you walk by faith now, you will reap reward. So the widow did what Elijah requested. And the Lord blessed her faith.

But it says after many days, the widow’s son died. And she went to Elijah and poured out her frustration and despair, “This is on you! Your presence here does not strengthen my faith, it simply reminds me of the weight of my epic doubt, and even as I have walked daily in obedience to the command of the Lord, now He has taken away my son. It would have been better had we died together before this miracle.” 

And Elijah, he didn’t rebuke her or argue with her…he was a man who knew the pain of finding hardship on the path of obedience. He simply took her son, and stormed the throne room on her behalf. For many days he had watched her life, had eaten at her table, had bore witness to the growing discomfort of receiving a miracle her faith did not earn her. I love how without reservation, he poured out his confusion and desperation to God. “Lord, NO! Why would You take away her son?! There has been too much loss, bring him back to her, Lord. Give this weary woman back her child.”

And the Lord listened to the voice of Elijah, and He allowed him to return to the widow with her son, not in his arms, but by his side. Elijah said, “See, your son lives.” And the widow said, “Now I know that you are a man of God, and that the word of the Lord in your mouth is truth.”

I resonate SO hard with this widow. I know what it feels like to be facing lack and clinging to the thing you desperately want to flourish with no idea how to proceed. And then from that place the Lord saying, “I want more from you.” 

I remember the moment the ultrasound tech looked up at me with her wand on my abdomen and said, “There are 2 babies.” I went home and lifted my hands up to the Lord and said something along the lines of, “What are You doing?! Why in the world would You call me to carry TWO children when You KNOW that my physical body barely makes it out of single pregnancies alive…and even though I have survived thus far, two of my babies have not. I am a broken incubator, and I (and/or both of these babies) am going to die because of what You have called me to.” I did not faithfully stride forward in my twin pregnancy, I “gathered sticks” and wrestled my fear. And when the Lord brought me a word of promise, I did not watch with expectation, I watched with genuine curiosity at how He would carry my body to the end of the pregnancy…how He would draw from my lack what was required to grow two babies…because I knew the facts, namely, that I did not hold what was required to bring it to fruition. I lived. Jane and Sia lived. And my body, the thing that bore the physical strain of carrying two humans, thrived through what it never should have been able to endure. 

But let’s look again at the widow’s journey. Elijah’s presence and the daily miracle, it didn’t magnify the widow’s faith, it reminded her that she doubted God when He called her; it ate away at her that she hadn’t been stronger, hadn’t trusted God more, had counted Him too small. And when her son died, she couldn’t quite bring herself to ask the God she had doubted for another miracle…and so she reached for the faith of the man who she knew could. By faith, he brought back her son to her with breath in his lungs and life in his bones, and his word “see…” pushed through the veil of shame and drew her faith from flailing to flourishing. “Now I know…”

My body—the thing that endured against all odds only by the promise and power of God—it has crashed and burned since the babies’ birth. Failure and weakness seem to have spoken the final word over it, it grimaces up from the dust wondering how the God who called me to such a task would leave me in such a condition when I had looked to Him every day—imperfectly, yes, but wholly nonetheless. I find myself looking around, eyes searching for the one who will let me lean upon their faith-filled shoulder, who believes that the grim realities of earth are no hindrance to the God who made it, who will charge the gates of heaven on my behalf and cry out to the Lord who loves us both and say, “No! Give this weary woman back her health.” 

 

Because I am waiting. I am waiting for the moment of return…where the word “see” makes visible, and the “knowing” brings about the testimony I was promised.

I find encouragement in this widow. I may not yet be able to muster up the faith of Elijah as he stands on the top of a mountain beside a multitude of false prophets calling down fire on a sopping wet altar…but I can wrap my head around the faith of the weathered widow. I love that God brought together this unlikely pair of worshipers and used them in each others lives. Because I am certain that it is not an accident that for Elijah, the journey beside the widow preceded the altar on the mountain.