Her only son is dead. And she’s a widow. Women in her time and culture, had no means of survival or sustenance outside of a husband or son providing it. She is suddenly plummeted into uncertainty and poverty.

We find Jesus walking with his disciples into the town of Nain, and into the middle of this scene, just as this broken hearted, grief stricken widow and her accompanying mourners carry her son’s body outside the town gate to a burial place.

There is no mention this widow had ever heard of Jesus. She didn’t run to Him as others had, begging for help, pleading for the life of her son. Immersed in the depths of loss and sorrow, she was unaware of His presence. 

Grief consumes. It overwhelms everything. At Mike’s memorial service and in the months following, I was mostly unaware of who and what surrounded me. People rotated in and out of my days, brought things, did things, hugged, spoke words. 

I barely remember any of it. It’s all a blur, still. A horrid slow motion video with sight, sound and activity taking place on the far edges of my existence. None of it making sense in the permanent absence of the man who, for years, had been my most intimate partner in life. 

I was the walking dead, a zombie going through the motions of the legalities and responsibilities Mike’s death had suddenly thrust upon me. The entire time my mind repeating like a scratched vinyl record, “He’s dead, he’s gone. How can this be real?” And my heart screaming in refusal to accept what my head already knew. This was it. It’s done. He’s not coming back to us anymore. 

There is this me that understands what the widow was feeling, but what I find most stunning about this account is how it completely implodes the long standing belief that it’s our job, my job, to have ‘enough’ or ‘more faith’ so God will notice, show up and do something. 

How do you have ‘enough faith’ when you can barely breathe? When your heart throbs with aching and your mind is a hurricane of fear, confusion, shock? When you’ve lost all appetite for food, are sleeping only thirty minutes a night and are so physically exhausted the only thing keeping you upright is the adrenaline of grief? 

How?

“And when the Lord saw her..”

That’s it right there! She didn’t see Him. She was unaware. Blinded by her sorrow. Deaf in her lament. 

He saw her. 

“He had compassion on her..” His heart suddenly exploded with mercy and love. 

He understood the desperation of her circumstance and without needing ANYTHING from her. Without being asked. He dried her tears and touched the stretcher that held her son’s cold body. 

Everything and everyone stopped as he returned life to this little family.

Though I begged and pleaded for it at the moment of Mike’s death, I, of course, didn’t get a resurrection story. At least not in the way I would have preferred.  Wouldn’t that have been awesome!

But what I find comforting and am coming to understand, is in the midst of pain, confusion, anger, suffering, sorrow, Jesus is always doing resurrection work. It’s not easy this coming back from the dead, but His compassion, mercy and love does not look away. Never forsakes or abandons.

He Sees. Notices. Touches. Renews. Resurrects.

Even when I don’t know how to trust. And even when I don’t have ‘enough faith’ to see.

It’s Who and What He Is and Does. 

Luke 7:11-15 Soon afterward he went to a town called Nain, and his disciples and a great crowd went with him. As he drew near to the gate of the town, behold, a man who had died was being carried out, the only son of his mother, and she was a widow, and a considerable crowd from the town was with her. And when the Lord saw her, he had compassion on her and said to her, “Do not weep.” Then he came up and touched the bier, and the bearers stood still. And he said, “Young man, I say to you, arise.” And the dead man sat up and began to speak, and Jesus gave him to his mother.

John 11:25 “Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in Me, though he may die, he shall live”