It Is Well: The Shunammite Woman

A mother rides as fast as she can across the countryside, her heart breaking. Someone runs to meet her and asks, “Is everything all right?” And she answers, “It is well.” She will not stop until she reaches the man of God.

In the town of Shunem lived a wealthy and important woman. Whenever the prophet Elisha passed through, she urged him to stop and eat at her house. Soon it became a habit. Every time he came by, he stopped there for a meal. One day she said to her husband, “I can tell that this man who keeps coming here is a holy man of God. Let's build a small room on the roof for him, and put in a bed, a table, a chair and a lamp. Then whenever he comes to us, he can stay there.”

So they did. One day, resting in his little room, Elisha wanted to thank her. Through his servant Gehazi he asked, “You've gone to all this trouble for us. What can I do for you? Can I speak to the king for you, or to the commander of the army?” But she said, “I live among my own people.” She was content. She didn't need favours. After she left, Gehazi pointed something out. “She has no son, and her husband is old.” So Elisha called her back, and she stood in the doorway. “About this time next year,” he told her, “you will hold a son in your arms.” She could hardly bear to hope. “No, my lord, man of God, don't raise my hopes like that.” But the next year, at just that time, she gave birth to a son.

The boy grew. One day at harvest time, he went out to his father among the reapers. Suddenly he cried out, “My head! My head!” His father told a servant to carry him to his mother. She held him on her lap until noon, and then he died. Without a word to anyone, she carried him upstairs, laid him on the bed in the prophet's room, and shut the door. Then she asked her husband for a donkey and a servant. “Why go to him today?” he asked. “It isn't a new moon or a Sabbath.” And she said simply, “It will be well.”

She rode hard to Mount Carmel. Elisha saw her coming in the distance and sent Gehazi running. “Is it well with you? Is it well with your husband? Is it well with the child?” “It is well,” she answered. But when she reached Elisha, she fell down and took hold of his feet. Gehazi came to push her away, but Elisha said, “Leave her alone. She is in deep distress, and the Lord has hidden it from me.” Then the words came out. “Did I ask you for a son, my lord? Didn't I tell you not to deceive me?” Elisha sent Gehazi ahead with his staff to lay on the boy's face. But the mother would not leave. “As surely as the Lord lives, and as you live, I will not leave you.” So Elisha got up and followed her.

Gehazi came back to meet them. He had laid the staff on the boy, but there was no sound, no sign of life. Elisha reached the house, went into the room, and shut the door. He prayed to the Lord. Then he stretched himself out over the child, and the boy's body began to grow warm. Elisha got up, walked back and forth in the room, and stretched himself over the child once more. And the boy sneezed seven times and opened his eyes. Elisha called for the mother. “Pick up your son.” She came in, fell at his feet and bowed to the ground. Then she picked up her son and went out.

The room this family built for Elisha was on the roof. In ancient Israel, most houses had flat roofs, reached by stairs or a ladder, and families used them as extra living space. Rahab dried stalks of flax on her roof, and the law even required a low wall around the edge, so no one would fall. A proper room built up there, with its own bed, table, chair and lamp, was a generous gift: a private place of rest for a travelling prophet. And it was there, in the room she had given, that her son was given back to her.

The Shunammite woman. You'll find her story in Second Kings, chapter 4, verses 8 to 37. She made room for God's servant when life was good, and she held on when her heart was breaking. So here's the question to carry with you. When things go wrong, who will you run to, and what will you refuse to let go of?