The Widow's Oil - Mother's Day

2 Kings 4: 1 – 7 (NIV): The wife of a man from the company of the prophets cried out to Elisha, "Your servant my husband is dead, and you know that he revered the Lord. But now his creditor is coming to take my two boys as his slaves." Elisha replied to her, "How can I help you? Tell me, what do you have in your house?" "Your servant has nothing there at all," she said, "except a little oil." Elisha said, "Go around and ask all your neighbors for empty jars. Don't ask for just a few. Then go inside and shut the door behind you and your sons. Pour oil into all the jars, and as each is filled, put it to one side." She left him and afterward shut the door behind her and her sons. They brought the jars to her and she kept pouring. When all the jars were full, she said to her son, "Bring me another one." But he replied, "There is not a jar left." Then the oil stopped flowing. She went and told the man of God, and he said, "Go, sell the oil and pay your debts. You and your sons can live on what is left."

A wise mother goes to God for help. This woman found herself in a desperate situation and went to Elisha, a man of God. If her sons had been taken as slaves to pay off the debt, there would have been no one to provide for her in that culture.
What Elisha told her to do probably made little sense to her, but a wise mother demonstrates faith in good times and bad. We see in this story that God's blessings are measured out to us, in part, by our measure of faith. If she had collected only a couple of jars from her neighbors, she would have come up too short to pay off the debt and provide for her family until her sons were old enough to begin to help. But she obeyed Elisha and collected many jars from the whole neighborhood. Clearly this was a witness to the town of God's mercy and power.
A wise mother obeys God even if it doesn't make sense to her. Trust, obey, and leave the results to God.
Why did Elisha tell her to shut the door behind her when the miracle of the oil began? I believe it was because he didn't want any more jars to be brought in once the oil began to flow. God was basing the amount of oil he provided on how many jars she had collected before the miracle began. In other words, we generally show faith before we see God's miracles.
We take our troubles and emptiness to God and he fills our lives with joy and with blessings.