Tabitha was always so helpful to us — to everybody, in fact.
For years I watched her helping everyone else and admired what she did, but back then it never occurred to me that one day I might need her help myself. With a houseful of children, I was certainly kept busy, but with my husband in regular work as a labourer, we were getting on quite well.
We were both staunch believers in The Way and enjoyed our fellowship with the other believers in Joppa, including Tabitha and her husband.
But working as a labourer has its dangers, and one day, about a year after we were baptised into Jesus’ name, the worst happened. I was returning from the market with our two youngest children when I was met by a running figure that I recognised as one of the men who worked with my husband.
“Your husband’s had an accident,” he shouted, “a block fell on him!”
I wished the children were not there to hear the terrible news, although they would have had to know later. For a moment I was numb with shock. Somehow I had always assumed that he would be kept safe despite the accidents that were all too common.
“Is he badly hurt?” I asked sharply.
“It looks,” said the man between gasps, “as if he’ll be out of work for quite a while.”
“But he’ll live?” I could not help asking, seeing the expression on his face.
He wouldn’t look at me. “How would I know?” Such was my fear that it scarcely registered that the man was muttering prayers.
I was praying desperately to the one God who could actually help — the God of The Way.
As I hurried to see my husband, who had by that time been carried home, I was still praying, yet more urgently as I saw the pain in his face. He tried to smile, but it was not convincing; he was obviously badly injured.
The next couple of days passed in a blur. The only thing I remembered later was Tabitha, helpful, kind Tabitha, appearing on my doorstep and asking what she could do for me.
She was always helping the poor, and with a jolt, I realised that, without a regular income, that would soon be us.
As I nursed my husband, she managed everything that I couldn’t: our clothing, our food, and even the children when the pain of my husband’s broken body was too great for him to bear and I could not leave his side. I did what I could, but my husband never recovered from that accident. He died with his faith and a hope for the future, but I was left a widow, our children fatherless.
Through it all Tabitha helped me.
I thought I had been busy before my husband died, but after that I realised what being busy really meant, as I took on suitable work to take some of the financial burden off the other believers. Without Tabitha’s help, though, we could not have coped. She made all our clothes — and let me tell you, active, healthy children go through clothes at a fair rate! — without ever being asked, and not only ours. Countless others benefited from her skill and willingness to help — and she
never wanted thanks, either, except where it could be directed towards God for giving her such skills and the time to use them. I followed her advice and thanked God.
I do not how long she had been ceaselessly doing good for everyone, yet never neglecting her husband. All I knew was that she was growing old. To work was her choice, however, and we let her continue — not that we could have stopped her — though she was perhaps slowing down.
But then, a few days ago, Tabitha suddenly became ill — badly ill. The first intimation I had of it was the sight of her husband running towards me as I left the house to go to the well for water. The situation was so similar to when I heard that my husband had been hurt that I knew, somehow, what he was going to say.
“It’s Tabitha,” he said, and fear strained his voice. “She’s lying on the floor and I can’t rouse her.”
“Should I tell others?” I asked quickly. Of the believers, our house was closest to theirs, so it made sense he would come to me first. I guessed that he probably wanted to return to her. “One of us can call the doctor, and I can get the other believers to pray.”
“Please do.”
I asked our neighbour to go and get the doctor, and then hurried around to the homes of the other believers. When I went, at last, to Tabitha, I could tell immediately that she was badly ill; only by a miracle could she survive this mysterious illness. But miracles do happen through the Holy Spirit, so we did not lose hope. We spent all of that day keeping her as comfortable as we could and praying for her recovery, but she kept on getting worse.
That evening, she died. The miracle we had hoped and prayed for had not come. If only one of the apostles had been in Joppa, she could have been made healthy again.
All we could do for her was done; we washed her body and placed it in an upper room. Normally, of course, we would have buried her immediately, but one of the brothers who had come to the house after finishing his work for the day happened to mention that Peter was in Lydda, only sixteen kilometres[1] away. I can’t remember who suggested asking Peter to come from Lydda. We were all still praying for a miracle — though we weren’t clear as to what — desperate to show how much we
appreciated her, and more, how much we loved her. Early the next morning, therefore, the leaders sent two men to see if Peter could come. Their words must have been convincingly urgent, because he arrived in Joppa that afternoon.
We were all gathered at the house when he arrived, still praying, refusing to completely give up hope; yet by that time we scarcely had any hope left. She was dead….
None of the weeping widows there — myself included — could bear to sit in complete idleness, so we each brought various garments Tabitha had made for us and sat reminiscing about her. We wanted to remember how hard she had worked to serve others, and to show Peter, too. Whenever we managed to control our sobbing for a time, it wasn’t long before it would begin once more, our grief fuelled by that of everyone else.
She had been so kind to all of us.
Peter glanced around at us. I said shakily, “She — she made these garments for us.”
“Yes!” wept another. “She made them all, everything we needed!”
“Such an inspiration!” added an older widow, tears flowing freely down her worn face.
Peter listened, then watched us, and said at last, plainly upset by our sorrow, “Please go out of the room, all of you.”
We left, although I wondered why he wanted us to leave. What was happening?
We did not have to wonder for long.
A short time later, Peter stepped out of the room, glanced around at the group of us and said with a smile, “Please come back in.”
Slightly puzzled, we entered the room, her husband near the front of the group. What…?
Tabitha was standing up, smiling — alive.
“What happened? She’s alive!” her husband cried, a look of delight flooding his grief-stricken face. The rest of us reacted with varying degrees of amazement — but all with joy and thankfulness.
Tabitha herself was looking a little disoriented, and turned to look questioningly at Peter, obviously wondering why we were all reacting this way.
“I prayed,” said Peter simply, “and told her to get up. She opened her eyes and sat up, so I helped her up and told her to wait until you all came in. That was all.”
“Wait,” said Tabitha, looking confused. “What was wrong with me?”
“You were ill,” I answered, “and then you… died.” I swallowed and continued, “But now Peter has come and you’re alive again.”
“And I feel… younger, too,” Tabitha said slowly. She looked wonderingly at Peter. “Praise the Lord! If — if anyone needs anything I can do….” She did not have to finish her sentence.
“Praise the Lord,” I repeated even as I smiled at her words, and I wasn’t the only one. It was such a typical Tabitha reaction. That she was well again delighted me, not from any sense of personal gain but because I wanted her to be well. And she clearly was. She looked younger, stronger, happier.
She had been dead, and now she was alive again. Our tears of grief, not yet dry, became tears of joy.
Tabitha was an encouragement to all of us. Now God had truly blessed her by resurrecting her, making it clear that he approved of what she was doing. I found myself wishing to emulate her, for once not even thinking of the extra work it would entail since I had a fairly large family of my own. She was such an example of how we could be like Jesus in serving others. Now we needed to share it with the world.
And Tabitha could work beside us!
