In II Kings 4:8-37 we read the account of woman called the Shunammite. I’m not too crazy about the fact that her actual name isn’t written, but the Bible does say that she was wealthy, so a least that’s good. The story goes on to say that when she saw Elisha passing through town with his servant, she offered them food and fed them. It goes on further to say that she said to her husband, “I know this holy man of God who is continually passing our way. Let us make a room for him on the roof…and whenever he comes to us, he can go in there. (She was the first Air BnB Superhost!)
One day while Elisha was resting at her groovy Bed and Breakfast, he told his servant, Gehazi, “Go call the Shunammite and say to her, "You’ve gone to all this trouble for me, what can I do for you?” Whereupon she answered, “I have a home among my own people.” Translation: “Nah, I’m good.”  Gehazi chimes in, “Well, she has no son and her husband is old.”  So they call her and declare to her, “At this time next year, you will have a son.” She says something like, “Don’t lie to me.” Or, “Don’t get my hopes up,” but she conceives and at that same time the following year she did have a son.
The boy grows and he’s out with his father harvesting grain when he suddenly cries, “My head, my head!” The father says, “Carry him in to his mother.” (I’m not impressed with this dad.) Then the Shunammite lifts him onto her lap and at noontime he dies. Here’s where it gets interesting.
She takes the boy up and lays him on Elisha’s bed and closes the door. Then she tells her husband, “Saddle me a donkey, I need to see the man of God.” He says, “Why do you need to see him? It’s not a new moon or a Sabbath.” This guy isn’t tuned in at all, and she doesn’t have time to explain. “All is well,” she says. Immediately she sets out for Mount Carmel where Elisha lives. According to Google Maps, this is about twenty miles away. The donkey must’ve taken all day to go twenty miles.
When Elisha sees her coming, he tells his servant, “Look, there’s the Shunammite. Run to meet her and ask her if everything is okay with her family?” She answers the servant, “All is well.” Maybe she knew it was the fastest way to see Elisha…no small talk. She get to Elisha, she gets down, grabs his feet and says, “I didn’t ask you for a son. I told you not to lie to me!”
Elisha sends Gehazi. He orders him to go to the child and put his staff on the boys face. The Shunammite says, “Fine, but I will not leave you, Elisha.”  Gehazi goes and tries the staff but nothing happens, so he returns. “He didn’t wake up.”
Elisha goes to the house, he went up to the room, shuts the door and begins to pray. I imagine Elisha was moved intensely in his mind and emotions. The Bible says, he lay on the boy’s dead body. He put his mouth on his mouth, his eyes on his eyes, his hands on his hands. Elisha he got up again and walked around, and then he again stretched out on the boy. The boy sneezed seven times, and then opened his eyes. He told Gehazi, “Call the Shunammite,” and then, “Pick up your son.” She fell at Elisha’s feet, bowing, and then she picked up her son and went out.
There are some important lessons we can learn from this woman. Here are a few of them:
She was alert.
She was confident.
She was walked in authority and humility at the same time.
She was secure. She knew who she was.
She was helpful. She did what she could with what she had.
She was content.
She was compassionate.
She was generous.
She was peaceful.
She was tenacious.
She was grateful.
She was alert. This woman noticed that the man of God passed through her town, she figured her was hungry and she had nice food. She paid attention. This is a valuable quality and is the opposite from being self-absorbed. Note: assume people are hungry and tired.
She was confident..she knew who she was. She had authority in her house. Her house was her jurisdiction. Your kitchen table is your platform. You have authority and anointing there.
She was secure enough to offer help. She wasn’t insecure.
She wasn’t nervous about her abilities. She showed compassion towards Elisha. She inconvenienced her self to serve the prophet in a somewhat natural way, she poised herself to receive a miracle. God is looking for people both man and women who will be like Moses and use, “what’s in your hand.” She opened her opening her home, her wallet her kitchen… she used her gifts.The Lord will show up when you open your life. This poised her for the miraculous. She had her sleeves rolled up! 
She was content. When asked, “How can we help you?” She didn’t immediately see this as an opportunity to serve herself. No doubt she had sought pregnancy with tears. I know I did. 
Like Deborah, she isn’t listed as a mother. 
She wasn’t defined by the pain of her infertility.
She’s peaceful. When  the unthinkable happens, the death of her son, she remains in faith. “All is well,” She tells her husband and Gehazi. She keeps her cool. She stays in faith. 
She isn’t intimidated by Elisha. I believe that she and Elisha…they were kindred spirits. Her had transferred his anointing to her while sitting at her table over all those dinners, Elisha kindled faith in the Shunammite. Maybe he became her informal mentor. Personally, I think formal mentors are hard to come by, especially for women. 
“What would Elisha do?” she wondered. Sometimes we study the lives of faith-filled people and they teach us by their example. I believe Elisha and the Shunammite were friends and that he taught her through their conversations.  Who might you be able to teach over food and friendship? Then again, who can you be mentored by?
The Shunammite was tenacious. She rode that donkey to Elisha and she refused to leave him. In the same way Elisha refused to leaved Elijah before he was taken up in the chariot of fire, she would not be dissuaded. “I will not leave you.” Forget it. (II Kings 2:11,12)
We see this same resolute tenacity in Elisha when he prays for her son. He was brave and determined.
He wasn’t technically allowed by Jewish law to lay on her dead son.
Laying on a dead thing was forbidden
He got tired. He got off the boy and walked around.
He went back. He got a renewed vision
God want to renew your vision for the impossible
Your eyes: stay focussed on the vision
Your mouth: Say what God says about your situation
Your hands: Keep sowing, stay engaged, stay diligent to see what god has promised come to pass.
Finally, she was grateful. When the boy came back to life, she bowed in worship before she picked up her son. 
What’s your baby? Your dream? Does it seem impossible? Does it seem dead?
Your baby could be a literal child or it could be a dream that God put in your heart. A business, An education, your marriage, your children or  another relationship. 
Maybe God is calling you to get back on that dream and to breathe new life into it. Put your hand to it, speak life into it. Believe again.
Maybe it wasn’t for that previous time, maybe its for now. God wants you to leave a legacy of faith. He wants you to set in motion a heritage of faith for your natural and spiritual children.
There are many aspects of this woman’s mindset that we can learn from. And you, my dear one, live in the new Covenant! You have the power of the Holy Spirit resident in you! You have Jesus seated at the right hand of God to intercede for you. (Romans 8:34)
God is calling us to see where there are needs, do what we can and then to prayerfully see where he is inviting us to partner with him to see the miraculous come to pass in the situations all around us! 
The Miraculous is Possible.

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It’s inevitable that once you take down your Christmas tree that you’re going to have to run the vacuum since the pine needles are everywhere. All the cute, burnt Christmas candles need to be thrown away and the ornaments need to be put to bed in their cozy bins. Baby Jesus and the rest of the nativity figurines need to be wrapped in tissue and tucked safely back into their tattered box. Similarly, my refrigerator needs to be cleaned out of all the dead leftovers and forgotten, moldy containers. Things have started to stink.
 
We come to January wanting to start clean and fresh not only in our homes, but also in our hearts. We want to renew our commitment to spending time with God’s word, His presence and with His people. We want to hear Him and to have him share his thoughts about our marriages, our kids, and our world.  I’m finding out that sometimes we must do business with what needs to be healed in our souls before we can come into a new level of hearing his voice and enjoying his presence. To be honest, I was a little surprised that I found out there were areas where I needed to forgive both myself and other people. 
 
NT Wright says, “Forgiveness is one of the foundation stones and reconciliation is the cement which holds everything together in the Kingdom of God. When we understand forgiveness flowing from the work of Jesus and the Spirit, as the strange, powerful thing really is, we begin to realize that God’s forgiveness of us and our forgiveness of others. The faculty by which we receive forgiveness for which we grant forgiveness are one and the same thing.”
 
In the first place, the same grace you responded to you when you met the Lord…you need the grace of God. Like oxygen, we need to receive God’s grace to repent, and forgive on an ongoing basis. Sometimes we need grace to forgive yourselves, otherwise we live in condemnation. Not good. Not forgiving myself largely has to do with being angry at myself for not being smarter, more self-disciplined nor having a longer attention span. I walk around saying, “I should’ve known better.” The Bible says that we should confess our sins so that he can forgive us and cleanse us, bringing light to our dark places. (I Jn. 1:9) Often we need other people to help us.
 
Lately, I’m finding that there are places in our souls that need to be healed. The better I understand who God is, the more I’m realizing that I was misinformed about aspects of his nature. There were authorities in my life who misrepresented Him. My heavenly Father isn’t annoyed by me. I’m not an imposition and I’m not too much for God. I’m not too curious.  I’m not too needy, moody, weepy, or lazy. He is not in a constant state of disapproval of me.
 
Do you even feel this way? I think we were parented by people who did the best they could, but something was lost in the translation. Many of our parents were stern because they were fearful. They grew up being told to be ‘seen and not heard.’ My parents lived through the depression and WWII. My grandparents didn’t have the luxury of entertaining their children’s whims. They were trying to put food on the table. 
 
We’re asking the Holy Spirit to come and minister to us in a fresh way. As we sit with Him, he’s revealing certain events that may have affected how we think of ourselves and how we cope. Perhaps you were the victim of inferior discipleship. Well-meaning people may have given you an unhealthy, fearful lens by which you see God. You may see him as bad tempered, stingy, and impatient. That isn’t true. Scripture says He’s slow to anger, abounding in mercy and loving kindness.
 
So, what do we do? I believe as we ask him to show us the beauty of his true nature, that he’ll come to us and help us out of ill-fitting identity. He wants to heal us from our trauma, betrayal, and injustice. Little by little He’ll help us forgive those who caused us to limp. Forgiveness doesn't mean "I didn't really mind" or "it didn't really matter." I did mind and it did matter, otherwise there wouldn't be anything to forgive. Nor is forgiveness the same as saying, "Let's pretend it didn't really happen.”
 
But it did happen, and forgiveness itself isn't pretending that it didn’t.  Forgiveness is looking hard at the fact that it did happen and making a conscious choice to apply the moral will to let go, to apply the grace which says, “I’ll leave the judging and condemning to God.” That way we’re free to live with hearts marked by renewed innocence. We choose to be unencumbered by bitterness or pain. 
 
Forgiveness means that we have settled it in our minds that we shall not allow this evil to determine the sort of people we shall then become. What we’ve endured does not have the final word. As Desmond Tutu said, “In our own ways, we are all broken. Out of that brokenness, we hurt others. Forgiveness is the journey we take toward healing the broken parts. It is how we become whole again.” 
 
You see, at his coming, the Lord Jesus ushered in a whole new kingdom, the Kingdom of God! We get to be His agents, giving and receiving grace, forgiveness, healing, and mercy. That way we don't have to wait for the future to start experiencing our deliverance from evil. We are invited, summoned, and bidden to start living this way in the present. This is how we begin to usher in the Kingdom today.
 
This verse sums this up perfectly. “Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony.”  Colossians 3:12-14
 
Ultimately, we end up brokering heaven into earth in real time. N.T. Wright said, “Forgiveness is the knife that cuts the rope by which sin, anger, fear, recrimination, and death are still attached to us. Evil will have nothing to say at the last, because Jesus’ victory of the cross will be fully implemented.” This is fabulous news!

Am I the only one? Let me know if you're experiencing similar "housekeeping" with the Holy Spirit these days.

Love, Bonny 
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