1 Kings 17:17-24
"17 After this the son of the woman, the mistress of the house, became ill. And his illness was so severe that there was no breath left in him. 18 And she said to Elijah, “What have you against me, O man of God? You have come to me to bring my sin to remembrance and to cause the death of my son!”19 And he said to her, “Give me your son.” And he took him from her arms and carried him up into the upper chamber where he lodged, and laid him on his own bed. 20 And he cried to the Lord, “O Lord my God, have you brought calamity even upon the widow with whom I sojourn, by killing her son?” 21 Then he stretched himself upon the child three times and cried to the Lord, “O Lord my God, let this child's life come into him again.” 22 And the Lord listened to the voice of Elijah. And the life of the child came into him again, and he revived. 23 And Elijah took the child and brought him down from the upper chamber into the house and delivered him to his mother. And Elijah said, “See, your son lives.” 24 And the woman said to Elijah, “Now I know that you are a man of God, and that the word of the Lord in your mouth is truth.”"
We may well suppose that salvation had come to that home in Zarephath through the sojourn of Elijah and that faith in the God of Israel had been born in the widow's heart. And so faith was put to the test when this great sorrow came upon her. The instinctive reaction expressed in 18 is very human and we can understand the desolation that was sweeping over her, almost overwhelming her new-found faith. We are reminded of the agonies Mary and Martha passed through when Lazarus died, and the wail of their grief in the words, 'Lord, if Thou hadst been here, my brother had not died'. Elijah dealt with the crisis with his usual directness, and cried to the Lord for the child, stretching himself out upon him, identifying himself utterly with his need. What thrill there is in the words in 22, 'The Lord heard the voice of Elijah' - not even death was immune from the power of this man's faith. The trial wrought something decisive in the widow woman - 'Now by this I know' - and she was brought out into a large place. To come through to bedrock conviction about the word of the Lord as she did is not a little thing nor is this often attained outside the crucible of suffering. Elijah's words in 19 seem parabolic - 'Give me thy son' - it is when our grief and sorrow are handed over to God (and this is not always done), what a release there would be in many lives if it were that He transforms them for us into spiritual energy and power. Is this a word for some grief-stricken heart today?