She was gathering sticks for her last meal. And God sent a prophet to her door.
📖Based on 1 Kings 17:14
The drought had been going on for years.
Elijah had spent time by the brook Cherith, where ravens brought him bread and meat each morning and evening.
Then the brook dried up.
God told him to go to Zarephath, a Gentile city in Sidon.
A widow there had been commanded to sustain him.
She hadn't been told this.
She was at the gate gathering sticks when he arrived.
He asked her for water. She went to get it.
He called after her: Bring me a piece of bread too.
She stopped.
She told him: As the LORD your God lives, I do not have bread. Only a handful of flour in a bowl and a little oil in a jug.
I am gathering two sticks to go home and make it for myself and my son.
That we may eat it and die.
Those exact words. Eat it and die.
She had made peace with the end.
Elijah told her not to fear.
Go and do as you have said. But first make me a small cake from what you have. Then make something for yourself and your son.
For the LORD God of Israel says the bowl of flour shall not be spent and the jug of oil shall not be empty until the day the LORD sends rain.
She went and did as Elijah said.
And she and he and her household ate for many days.
The bowl of flour was not spent.
The jug of oil did not run empty.
According to the word of the LORD.
She had been a stranger to Israel. A Gentile in a Gentile city.
And God had looked across the whole of Israel during a famine and found her.
At the gate. Gathering her last sticks.
And sent his prophet to her door.
Scripture — 1 Kings 17:14
"For thus saith the LORD God of Israel, The barrel of meal shall not waste, neither shall the cruse of oil fail, until the day that the LORD sendeth rain upon the earth."
Reflection
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She was told to feed the prophet first. The miracle was on the other side of that act of trust.
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God chose a Gentile widow in a foreign city. The borders of His provision are not where we draw them.