Subject: “FEET”, due date Jan. 24, 2019
This is a story I wrote as an entry in an Writing Contest. Thought I would share it here.
The old prophet’s feet were dirty and bleeding as he sauntered along the pathway. It had been a long journey by foot into Zarephath from the mountains of Jordan. The attractive Sidonian woman stacked another twig of kindling atop her already bulging bundle and watched him navigate his way through the city gate.
She couldn’t help but notice that the weary wanderer seemed deliberate in his mission. She recognized him as he drew closer. She had been expecting him. It was Elijah, the Tishbite from Gilead. He was the prophet responsible for the famine in the land – the famine that would surely be the death of her and her young son. She remembered his face clearly from the mysterious dream that could only be explained as ‘divinely inspired’. She had understood the instructions well enough (1 Kings 17:9), but how to carry them out was, well, still a mystery.
Once he was well within earshot, breathlessly he called out to her, “Could I bother you for a drink of water?”
She dropped her bundle of kindling beside the doorway of her small, but well-kept home and made her way to the spring. “And bring me a little bread too, please!” he said almost commandingly.
The widow stopped in her tracks and spun around to face the old prophet. He obviously had no clue who he was talking to. He was supposed to be a prophet, a seer – had he lost all his visionary abilities? Could he not SEE with his prophetic capacities that she had no bread to spare? How dare he ask for her last little bit of food to satisfy his own needs. After all, he was God’s man, why didn’t he call bread down from Heaven or something. Why should she feed a perfect stranger while her own son lay in the house sick and at the point of death from malnourishment (due to a famine that ‘he’ was responsible for in the first place)?
Just as she took a deep breath to let the old prophet have an ear full, she remembered the message of her unusual dream (1 Kings 17:9). She bit her lip and calmly composed herself enough to explain the situation.
“I only have a handful of flour left in the whole house. I and my son are at the point of starvation. I have been saving it to bake one last meal for us. Afterward, well… I guess it doesn’t take a prophet of the Lord to figure that one out!”
1 Kings 17:13-16
And Elijah said to her, “Do not fear; go and do as you have said, but make me a small cake from it first, and bring it to me; and afterward make some for yourself and your son. For thus says the Lord God of Israel: ‘The bin of flour shall not be used up, nor shall the jar of oil run dry, until the day the Lord sends rain on the earth.’ ”
So, she went away and did according to the word of Elijah; and she and he and her household ate for many days. The bin of flour was not used up, nor did the jar of oil run dry, according to the word of the Lord which He spoke by Elijah.
What the widow first thought had been a self-centered request from the man of God was actually an invitation to partake in the miraculous.
Isaiah 52:7 How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him who brings good news…
Be mindful that what may seem like an imposition might actually be an invitation to see the miraculous in your own life. Every opportunity for giving is an opportunity for a blessing.
Jan. 23, 2019, Sandra Briggs
