These were tough times. The Bible relates the story of a widow whose late husband left her with a debt she could not pay (see II Kings 4:1–7). Her two sons were going to be taken as slaves to pay the debt, so she cried out to the prophet Elisha for help.
Elisha asked what she had in the house. She had only a pot of oil. He told her to borrow many vessels from the neighbors and then pour the oil from her pot into them all—and the oil just kept flowing until every vessel was full. She was able to sell some of the collected oil to pay her debt, and she and her sons lived on the remainder.
This experience was the official start of my spiritual education.
