Elisha and the Room on the Roof Bible story for kids

"I know that this man who often comes our way is a holy man of God."

That is a woman talking to her husband, in a little town called Shunem. And the man she is talking about is out on the road again, walking past their house with dust on his sandals.

Let me back up one step.

The woman had a big house, good fields, enough of everything. The Bible never writes her name down. Not once. It only ever calls her the woman of Shunem.

And the man out on the road was a prophet named Elisha, who walked from town to town.

The first time he came by, she asked him to stop and eat. He did. Then he went on his way.

But the road went through Shunem again. And again. And every time, there she was — come in, come in. A meal on the table. A chair pulled out. Year after year, that same small kindness.

Do you remember the widow at Zarephath? One handful of flour left in her jar, and she fed a hungry prophet anyway. This woman was the opposite. She had plenty. Nobody needed her to share. She just did.

So one evening she said that line to her husband. And then she said something else.

"Let's make a small room on the roof for him, and put in it a bed and a table, a chair and a lamp. Then he can stay there whenever he comes to us."

A bed. A table. A chair. A lamp.

Not a palace, little one. Four plain things in one small quiet room, up on the flat roof, waiting for a tired man who had never asked for anything.