¹¹ One day when Elisha came, he went up to his room and lay down there. ¹² He said to his servant Gehazi, "Call the Shunammite." So he called her, and she stood before him. ¹³ Elisha said to him, "Tell her, 'You have gone to all this trouble for us. Now what can be done for you? Can we speak on your behalf to the king or the commander of the army?' "
She replied, "I have a home among my own people."

¹⁴ "What can be done for her?" Elisha asked.
Gehazi said, "Well, she has no son and her husband is old."

¹⁵ Then Elisha said, "Call her." So he called her, and she stood in the doorway. ¹⁶ "About this time next year," Elisha said, "you will hold a son in your arms."
"No, my lord," she objected. "Don't mislead your servant, O man of God!"

¹⁷ But the woman became pregnant, and the next year about that same time she gave birth to a son, just as Elisha had told her.

¹⁸ The child grew, and one day he went out to his father, who was with the reapers. ¹⁹ "My head! My head!" he said to his father.
His father told a servant, "Carry him to his mother." ²⁰ After the servant had lifted him up and carried him to his mother, the boy sat on her lap until noon, and then he died. ²¹ She went up and laid him on the bed of the man of God, then shut the door and went out.

²² She called her husband and said, "Please send me one of the servants and a donkey so I can go to the man of God quickly and return."

²³ "Why go to him today?" he asked. "It's not the New Moon or the Sabbath."
"It's all right," she said.

²⁴ She saddled the donkey and said to her servant, "Lead on; don't slow down for me unless I tell you." ²⁵ So she set out and came to the man of God at Mount Carmel.
When he saw her in the distance, the man of God said to his servant Gehazi, "Look! There's the Shunammite! ²⁶ Run to meet her and ask her, 'Are you all right? Is your husband all right? Is your child all right?' "
"Everything is all right," she said.

I have loved that story as long as I can remember, but he brought out something so incredible. Noticed in verse 20 that they carried the child in and laid him in his mother's arms and she held him there until he died. Then she laid him in the chamber she had prepared for the prophet.

She held him as long as breath was in his body, but when he died in her arms, that promise that she had held so dear, she put him down. She "Refused to Rock a Dead Baby."

How many times in my own life have I sat and rocked something dead, refusing to give it over to my Master, the One who could take care of the problem?

She didn't even wait for someone to saddle the donkey for her, she wanted it brought to her and she headed out to find the man of God who had told her of the promise of a child.

There is a promised revival waiting for us, revival for our churches, for our families, for our lives. But first we have to lay down those dead things we have been carrying around before the stench gets into our very souls.

Is that what others smell when they are around us? There is no covering it up, no hiding it. When you are holding a dead thing it gets down inside of you where no soap can wash it off.

Oh, but there is a place of cleansing, a place to lay aside those dead things, if there is a place prepared in your life for Him to come. That is why it is so important to prepare a place for Him before our promises die, before we experience hurt and heartache.

I am so thankful for the message, so thankful that I could lay that dead baby I had been carrying around for far to long at the place prepared for my Master.

What about you? Are you rocking something that has long ago died? Are you wondering why you cannot be effective and reach the lost, not knowing that the world can smell the stench of that dead thing on you? The time has come to let it go. Let go of the pain, the bitterness, the hurt, rid yourself of that dead thing before it seeps into your skin too deep and rots your heart.