This post is from Moms Take Ten episode 132, “Moms in the Bible–Two Grieving Mamas”, which you can listen to wherever you listen to podcasts or at https://sites.libsyn.com/403493/moms-in-the-bible-two-grieving-mamas
Happy New Year Mamas! I apologize for missing last week’s episode of Parenting in Scripture. The year started off with me sick in bed. But I am happy to be back for an episode of our Moms in the Bible series. This week we are going to look at the story of two women who experienced the death of a child and learn from their responses. We have studied part of both of their stories before–the widow from Zarephath that we looked at in November, and the Shunammite woman whom we studied in February of 2023.
The Widow Zarephath had found herself and her son on the brink of starvation. This was during the drought that the prophet Elijah foretold of. Elijah himself was led to the Widow by the Lord. She was to provide Elijah with food, but through that, the Lord provided for her. 1 Kings 17: 15 says, “there was food everyday for Elijah and the woman and her family. For the jar of flour was not used up and the jug of oil did not run dry, in keeping with the word of the Lord spoken by Elijah.”
But then things took a turn, for the Bible says that some time later, while Elijah was still living there, the woman’s son became ill to the point of death. In her grief, she turned to Elijah and asked what she did wrong. “What do you have against me, man of God? Did you come to remind me of my sin and kill my son?” she cries (1 Kings 17:18). How could this thing have happened to her? Why did he let it happen?
Many years later, Elijah has gone to be with the Lord and his successor Elisha is serving as the Lord’s prophet. A well-to-do woman from Shunem and her husband had taken Elisha under their wing, so to speak, having built a room for him to lodge when he passed through their town and providing meals for him as well. As a thank you for their kindness, Elisha asked the Lord to give her a son. Though she was skeptical of Elisha’s promise, she did indeed have a son.
As with the Widow Zarephath, her son also became ill and died quite suddenly, in the course of a morning. The Shunammite woman immediately headed out of the house to find Elisha at Mount Carmel. “Did I ask you for a son, my lord? Didn’t I tell you, ‘Don’t raise my hopes’?” she says to him when she finds him (2 Kings 4:28). Basically, why would you give me a son and then let this happen? Her questioning sounds so similar to the Widow Zarephath.
Both of these women had been in a position of favor. The Widow Zarephath had seen her and her son’s lives saved through an incredible miracle by the Lord. She had thought they were going to die and instead they were alive and well provided for! The Shunammite Woman had seen her generosity rewarded with the birth of a son. Something that she had dared not hope for had happened and she had spent several years enjoying being his mama. Prayers had been answered in both of their lives, whether they had even known to pray them, and things had been going so well.
Yet now they question it all in the face of immense grief.
Don’t we ask questions like that when things aren’t going well? When there is pain involved? When tragedy strikes?
Especially when things had been going so well, the challenges, the grief, the trauma catch us by surprise and steal our breaths away. Scripture talks about how God gives and he also takes away. And how there will be suffering in this world, consequences of sin, both ours and others, and the reality of living in a broken world. Answered prayers and good gifts we receive joyfully, the rest often fills us with questions and doubts.
In their grief, both women turned to the prophet for answers. How wonderful that because of the atoning work of Christ we can now go directly to him! In their time, one sought a priest or prophet to intercede for them, so the women went straight to Elijah and Elisha.
The deaths of both sons seemed to catch both prophets off guard. They weren’t expecting them either! Elijah’s dismay is heard in his prayer, “Oh Lord my God, have you brought tragedy also upon this widow I am staying with, by causing her son to die?” (1 Kings 17:20) Elisha’s surprise is evident when the Shunammite woman falls before him, grabbing his feet. “Leave her alone!” he says to his servant, who is trying to remove the woman. “She is in bitter distress, but the Lord has hidden it from me and has not told me why.” (2 Kings 4:27)
But both move to action. The stories are remarkably similar. In their upper rooms of the women’s homes, the prophets intercede for the boys lying dead on their beds. And both prophets stretch their bodies out on top of the boys’, literally laying on them as they pray. And the Lord hears and answers. Bodies warm, hearts resume beating, breath fills lungs as the boys wake up and are returned to their mothers. What a reunion! These gentile women were the first in Scripture to receive their dead back. God proved to them and to us that he is more powerful than death, a foreshadowing of what is to come as Jesus is laid in the tomb.
When we bring our struggles before the Lord, our grief, our problems that seem too far gone, we find a listening ear and caring heart. Unlike the prophets, God is not caught off guard by what is happening to us. He has known. He sees it all. And he enters into our sorrow with us while also making a path forward for us. Hebrews 4:15 says, “For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who has been tempted in every way as we are, yet without sin.” He came face to face repeatedly with the brokenness of this world and with the sin of others. He knew what it was like to be left out, mocked, and misunderstood. He was betrayed. He saw pain and death. He experienced both in his own body. Grief was not foreign to him. He knows our struggles intimately.
This makes me think of a story found in John 11 where Jesus expressed his own grief at the pain of this world. His dear friend Lazarus had died. When Jesus arrived on the scene, with Lazarus already in the tomb, both of Lazarus’ sisters greeted Jesus in the same way– “Lord, if you had been here, my brother wouldn’t have died.” (v. 21 and 32). This didn’t need to happen, they imply! You could have stopped it. Just as the Widow Zarephath and the Shunammite Woman, they wrestle with the reality of what has happened. They know, as we all do, that death should not be. Jesus received their accusations so compassionately. As with Elijah and Elisha, he joined them in their grief even though he had the advantage. He knew that Lazarus was going to be raised from the dead! And still the Scriptures say that he wept with them and for them, and even for himself I think.
“Therefore,” Hebrews 4:16 says, “let us approach the throne of grace with boldness, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in time of need.”
Christ receives us in whatever state we are in and compassionately listens to our struggles.
And when we don’t know what to say. When it feels impossible to put into words what we need or want, or when we aren’t even sure ourselves what we need or want. When we feel hopeless as though no answer could possibly help. Paul tells us that “the Spirit also helps us in our weakness, because we do not know what to pray for as we should, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us, with inexpressible groanings.” (Romans 8:26).
This is the thing I’ve held onto the most from the stories of the Widow Zarephath and the Shunammite woman, things are never too far gone for prayer and the power of the Lord Jesus.
The other night, I was tucking one of my kiddos into bed. We were talking about Martin Luther King Jr which led to talking about our family which led to talking about his family which led to talking about who believed in Jesus. He asked me if his birth mama believes in Jesus. I told him I didn’t know but I really hope so, that even if not now, I hope at least one day she will. As I was recounting that story to my husband, we talked about how sometimes we don’t have enough faith to pray for things like that. They just seem so unlikely. There are many things I don’t pray for, or don’t pray for as often as I could, simply because of unbelief.
The problem is too big, I think. The answer is too complicated. The situation is too messy.
I don’t think the Widow Zarephath believed that her son would come back to her, but I do think that the Shunammite Woman did. She basically told Elisha she wasn’t going to let him out of her sight until he went and did something about it. That was after she lowered herself, humbled herself, in order to grab hold of his feet. Her testimony to me is a call to fight for ourselves, our families, our children. To pray for them, to hold hope for them even when others have given up, even when our children have, and to press into the Lord, humbly, submissively seeking his help, his intervention. And to believe in who he is, remembering the power that he displayed in these women’s stories, in the resurrection of Jesus Christ, and in answered prayers in your life. Remember that he still answers prayers and that he delights in giving good gifts to his children.
What is on your heart today? Where do you want to see victory, healing, change? What are you starting to lose hope for? Bring it before the Lord today.
Cover Image from John Heseltine / Pam Masco / FreeBibleimages.org.
Lyssa Stoyko 