Great Story. Why do you think the woman connects her son's death to her own sin and to the prophet 'killing' her son?
Paul says the wages of sin is death, does he get that idea from this woman. She addresses Elijah as the man of God. Does she refuse to use his name. This prophet has been miraculously feeding her ( providing oil and flour ) since he arrived and they are all alive. Nowhere in the story does the prophet talk about her and sin. Does she think she is the only one who sins? No answer. Elijah doesn't answer her question. That really challenges me to stop reacting. Elijah gets about the task at hand. This woman holding her dead son is just the picture of Mary holding the dead body of Christ - by the way that is not in the gospels to the best of my knowledge. But here this woman holding her dead son is huge and heavy on my heart. Elijah says, 'Give your son to me' Then he lifts the boy and carries him upstairs to his room. I am not at all sure why the writer of I Kings tells us these details: the crying out of Elijah to God, laying on the boy, three times. Elijah accuses God of killing the boy. Is Elijah thinking that his residence and food are at risk. He will be sent away by this woman? Amazing: Elijah cries out to God to send the boy's life back to him, some translations say send his soul back into his body. Unreal. God does it. Is this one story in a million? Did prophets do this again and again and here we see the formula? Elijah who carries the boy up 'brings the boy down', my image is that they walk down together. Listen to the woman: 'Now I know that you really are a man of God, and that the Lord's word is truly in your mouth.' She has been eating for who knows how long but now with her son restored to her she trusts the truth of God.
What by the way is the truth of God? Elijah's style of praying, that he doesn't respond to her dodgy theology, that he has his own funky theology the story with so many questions is nevertheless clear, son dies, mother is distraught, prophet places situation before God, son is alive. What does that mean to you?