Preach it Girl
Join Auntie Lala for a SASSY retelling of stories from the Bible—a jaunt so lively you’ll think the scriptures were written just yesterday, not thousands of years ago.
On the Preach it Girl Podcast, you’ll feel encouraged and loved, but you’ll also laugh—hopefully out loud—at the quirky characters of the Bible. These beloved men and women falter, fail, and flop—just like us. And just like us, they’re altogether forgiven.
Now that’s the best news fit to preach!
Preach it Girl
The Generous Host: How the Shunammite Woman Transformed Her Fate
Can a simple act of hospitality lead to a chain of divine interventions? Join us as we unravel the vibrant story of the Shunammite woman, whose generosity toward the prophet Elisha sparked a series of extraordinary events. Let's explore her unwavering faith and relentless determination, from the joyful blessing of a miraculously promised son to the unimaginable heartbreak of his sudden death. This episode takes a closer look at her relentless quest for God's help, serving as a powerful testament to faith and persistence and revealing the unexpected and vibrant tales of women woven into the fabric of the Bible.
Prepare for another captivating chapter where we uncover the Shunammite woman's encounter with divine prophecy, as Elisha warns her of a looming famine. Her return after seven years and the remarkable restoration of her property highlight the theme of God's enduring favor and ability to bless beyond expectations. Drawing parallels to modern times, we share an inspiring story of a woman's unexpected success in the film industry, echoing the miraculous interventions of the past. Tune in for these compelling narratives of faith, restoration, and the belief that doors can open when least expected.
Hi, friends, and welcome to Preach it Girl podcast, where we're not just sitting around waiting for Jesus' second coming or for Skinny Pop to make us skinny. We are in the Word of God and we are listening to sassy stories from the Bible. And let me tell you there are some sassy stories in the Bible all the way from the women to the men to Jesus. Okay, there may even be a sassy prophet in the Bible. All the way from the women to the men to Jesus. Okay, there may even be a sassy prophet in the Old Testament. One of my new favorite stories in the Bible is the story of the Shunammite woman. We don't even know her name. All that we know is that she is from Shunamm.
Speaker 1:This was back in the Old Testament, following the prophet Elijah. He had passed the torch of prophet to his mentee, elisha. Some call him Elisha, but Elisha now had this double portion of what Elijah had and he would roam from the mountain of Carmel, his home base, to all around the nation. He would meet with people and he had kings that he would talk to and army commanders. He was just the man who heard from God and who would talk to the people about God and talk to the people in charge, especially the government. He would correct them so that they could lead the people in a godly way. Well, as he's passing through places, he would, of course, be hungry and need to stop, and there was this woman who would invite him in to eat. She was the hospitality hostess with the mostest.
Speaker 1:Now something about the Old Testament and New Testament. I heard this one, pastor Graham Cook. He referred to the Old Testament and New Testament. I heard this one, pastor Graham Cook. He referred to the Old Testament as a visitation culture because God would visit people, and the New Testament as a habitation culture, because God now on the other side of Jesus's birth ministry, death and resurrection, god inhabits us and we get to carry him with us wherever we go. Once we have Jesus. But this is an Old Testament. God spoke with people through the temple and through his prophets that were him on earth, like his words on earth, and so this woman recognized that he was a man of God, so he would invite him over for some casserole.
Speaker 1:After a while. Alicia knew where to go when he was hungry, right? So he's passing through and it's knock, knock, knock, shoot a mite woman. What you got tonight, one day, after he'd stopped in a number of times, she said to her husband behold, I know this is a man of God. Why don't we put a little cot and shelter up on top of our house? Because back in that day, you know, they'd go up on the roof and give him a desk and a bed so that he could spend the night if he was tired, him and his servant. I kind of picture this. My grandmother maybe, instead of behold, she would have said looky here, this man of God's coming into town. And we got to put him up, as he does the Lord's work. They did just that. They set up a little place for him and so when he'd pass through town he'd come and spend the night.
Speaker 1:Well, one time he was staying there and he turned to a servant. He's like man. Let's do something for this woman. She's taking so much trouble for us. So he sent his servant what is his name?
Speaker 1:Gehazi sent him down to talk to the Shunammite woman and ask her what does she want? Would you like me to put a word in for the king? Would you like me to put a word in to the commander of the army? Can you imagine if you were hosting someone and they had that much power and connectiveness. Can you think of somebody you would love to have your name in their ear, you know, like a famous producer or the president, whatever it was? Well, she ended up saying no, I've got a wonderful family and I'm well taken care of. She was a well-off woman. So Gehazi came back to Alicia and said she doesn't want anything. And Alicia's like what are we going to do? And Gehazi this cracks me up because he's obviously very blunt he says well, she doesn't have a son and her husband is old. He didn't pull any punches. Alicia said we'll call her up here.
Speaker 1:So the Shunammite woman comes up on the roof. Alicia says this time next year you'll be holding a son. And the Shunammite woman said oh man of God, no, don't lie to your servant, don't get my hopes up. But sure enough, one year later she had a son, and so that son had gotten older I'm imagining him around six or seven. The Bible says that he went out to his dad in the fields and started complaining that his head was hurting. It got so bad. Dad sent a servant with his son back to his mother and it says she held him in her arms and he died.
Speaker 1:And let me tell you what this woman did. This woman took that child up to the roof and laid him on Alicia's bed. And then she called to her husband hey, looky here, send a donkey and your servant and I'm going to go see the man of God. And the husband's like it's not even the Sabbath, there's no new moon, festival or whatever to go see him. And she's like, oh, all is well. So I just picture her giving him the hand. You know like we're going and all will be well because I'm going to go see the man of God. And then she told her servant once they had that donkey going don't you stop, don't pause unless I tell you to. Don't let up.
Speaker 1:Go straight to Mount Carmel to find Alicia Off, they go Not too far away. He sees her coming. He's like what's going on? Do you see? There's the Shunammite and she's hauling donkey up here. She was on a donkey, y'all. He sends Gehazi, go find out what's wrong.
Speaker 1:Gehazi comes running up to the All is well, all is well. She's going to take that donkey all the way to Mount Carmel, to Alicia, and she's not stopping until she gets there. I see her just giving Gehazi the hand too. Ho ho ho, all is well, don't you worry. I'm going to the man of God. And when she gets to him she falls at his feet and says man of God, did I ask you for a son? I can, and you just think of any mother. Oh, she wasn't going to stop at anything. I didn't ask you for a son. And now he's dead.
Speaker 1:Alicia tells Gehazi, take my staff, go, lay it on that little boy right now. And so he takes off. But that Shunammite woman, she wasn't going anywhere. She didn't move. She says the Lord is my witness. I am not leaving here unless you're going with me. She knew who had the power of God and she was not going anywhere. Alicia said okay, let's go.
Speaker 1:By the time they get there, gehazi comes out and said it didn't work, that staff, I laid it on him, nothing happened. He didn't wake up. Alicia gets into the house, he lays on top of the child like face to face, chest to chest. Praise to God, nothing happens. He gets up, takes a walk around like shake it off, shake it off. And then he does it again, and this time he feels the body get warm beneath him and then the kid sneezes seven times. That's kind of strange, right? So the boy is fine. He calls Gehazi, go get the Shunammite woman, and he hands this child to his mother, thank you, thank you for saving my son. I mean, if that's not the most incredible story Now.
Speaker 1:First of all, I didn't even tell you where the story's from, but it's. I already told you it was Old Testament, but it's 2 Kings chapter, hold up 37. And we're going to skip on ahead because a little bit further in the story there's more. This Shunem story is legit and really there's only three people that were raised from the dead in the Old Testament. Okay, so anyway, the son's alive, everything's great.
Speaker 1:Elisha still stops in. Of course, he's the hero right and gave the word for the boy to be born and then brought him back to life. But then the Lord is upset with the Israelites and Elisha tells this woman she's like getting the firsthand knowledge. Look, there's going to be a seven-year famine and if y'all don't leave and go to another nation for seven years, you're not going to survive. He tells her the whole scoop. So that's exactly what she does. They pack up the whole household, all the things that they can take with them, and they leave. They leave their home, they leave their land, they skeet out. Well, seven years have passed, the famine is over and she comes back.
Speaker 1:Now this is where I go. Lord number one, you can do the impossible. And it is never too late, it's never too far gone, it's never too hard for our God. Okay, he can do all things. There's no impossible word in the Lord's vocabulary, okay? So here we go.
Speaker 1:The famine's over, they're coming back, and it says the Shunammite woman, not the husband. It's kind of crazy, because the man's out there working, he's providing for his family. But this Shunammite woman, she was insightful, she was wise and she knew who to talk to, who to be hospitable to. And then now she's going in to see the king to see about getting their land back. This is how good God is. This just spoke to me so hard.
Speaker 1:As she's walking in, hazi is talking to the king and the king is asking tell me some more stories about all these cool miracles that Alicia's done. And so Gehazi's like well, look, there was the time he raised this kid from the dead. And as he is telling the king this, guess, who walks in? It's the Shunammite woman and her son. And Gehazi's like oh my god, I wonder if he said, oh, my god, he might have. He said that's her and that's her son, right there, and the king's super stoked. He's like Come over here, I want to hear the story from the horse's mouth, I want to hear it from you. And so the Shunammite woman you know says yes, and everything that happened.
Speaker 1:And then the king says oh, you were coming back to try and get your land. I got you Talk to my assistant over here. They're going to get you your land, they're going to get your house back and they're going to pay you. We're going to reimburse you for every crop of the year that you were gone. You're going to get those in dividends. Okay, we're going to reimburse you for all that you lost, all that you missed, because, guess what, in the kingdom of God, you don't miss nothing and it doesn't matter who tried to take whatever from you, because God's in charge. So they can take whatever they took. Don't you even worry about it, because the God that we serve can give you back, above and beyond, what you lost, and he will, if you will trust him with it. Okay, he will. And so that particular story I was listening to this podcast on my walk and I'm just strutting down the street and be bopping to my podcast.
Speaker 1:It was a writing podcast. It was about this woman who wrote screenplays and she had written as a younger person but then had not done it for a very long time. She was married and a little bit older. Her and her husband had this boat selling business like a six-figure business, right. But she was kind of depressed and she started writing again. And then her husband gets a call from a film production wanting to rent one of their boats. Now the husband answers the phone and he's like we do not rent these $250,000 boats. But the wife's like what? No, honey, honey, this is a film production and I'm writing scripts that need to be produced. And so they ended up renting this production company a boat and the husband captained it and she was the first mate. Well, it was the movie Bird on a Wire with Mel Gibson, goldie Hawn, the producer on that movie, marshall. He produced all kinds of things. Well, he found out she was a script writer and he took her under his wing. They ended up having a bidding war over her first script.
Speaker 1:That's right, and y'all, I'm there be bopping walking listening to my podcast, and I stopped. If anybody was watching from their house they would have thought I was crazy, because I was talking. I was talking to the Lord. I stopped that podcast and I was like Lord, you do this very thing today this isn't just 2000,000 years ago like the Shunammite woman. This is today. You open doors just like that. With a snap of a finger, with the ring of a phone, you can open the right door for your kids and you will do it because you love us and you pour out your favor on your children, on those people who love the Lord. Oh, I was excited. I was like God, I was like doing a little jig out there.
Speaker 1:Side note, here we are Old Testament. So that was the Shunammite woman in the Jewish faith when the rabbis would tell this story. So when, when Elisha died, he was buried you know they have these tombs and there were these guys who are burying someone else after Elisha had already died. And some raiders came through the land and they were like oh God, they're going to kill us and we just got to get rid of this body because they go outside of the town to bury people. So they threw this dead body into the tomb of Elisha and you know what? That body hit Elisha's bones and came back to life. And the rabbis say that they thought it was the Shunammite woman's son. What Y'all? If the Lord raises a person, they can't hardly die. I mean, I guess he eventually did die because he's not living forever, but that day he touched Elisha and he came right back to life. That's not necessarily scripture, but it is traditional thought in the Jewish tradition.
Speaker 1:Okay, one extra little bit that you're going to get today. In Jesus's time he raised many people from the dead, like a lot more than the Old Testament. There was just three, but there was a ton in the New Testament. And one of them was a woman from Nain walking outside a funeral procession, heading to bury the child outside of town, and Jesus and his disciples came upon her and he wept for her. It was her only son and he raised him back to life and he didn't have to pray to nobody because he was God. That son just got back up and you guys do you know Nain is like a 20-minute walk from Shunem.
Speaker 1:These Jewish families, these people every week they're listening to the stories of the Torah and the prophets. So they would have known this story. They would have known the Shunemite story, and here comes Jesus doing it again, and doing it even better. That's cool y'all. Okay, what are you taking from this? Don't be afraid to ask for what you need, and if you know it needs to be done, go and do it and don't let somebody stop you. Give them that hand. All will be well, because I serve the Most High God. So let me just wrap this up by saying, in love to everyone who still thinks that women aren't called to preach, stop spreading that dum-dum sauce on biscuits and calling it gravy, okay. So thank you so much for listening to. Preach it, girl, and I'll see you next time.
