Around 800 B.C. during a trying time in Israel’s history where the nation was steeped in idolatry, great famine, and a culture of death, God chose one woman to sustain His prophet. A poor starving widow of Zarephath was chosen by God to surrender her own bread, feed the prophet of God, and experience the multiplication of her sustenance. Later on after experiencing the death of her son, Elijah, the prophet who she blessed with food, cried out to God on behalf of the mother, and God heard and raised her son from the dead.
Amidst a culture of death, a mother, who was a life-giver and life-sustainer, was given the gift of life from the One who conquered death and is risen!
Likewise we who live in a culture of death where life, truth, and even the church appear to be dying around us, can hope in the God who raises the dead!