What to Do When You Have Nothing Left: The God Who Makes Much of Little

Sometimes, you meet someone whose story feels like sacred ground. That’s how I felt when I first heard Courtney Pray Duke‘s story. She’s walked through the kind of heartbreak that takes your breath away, the kind that makes you wonder if you’ll ever breathe again. And yet, here she is, showing us how God meets us in the ashes, how He takes our nothing and turns it into His everything. Courtney’s words are a gift, a lifeline for anyone who’s ever felt like they’re running on empty. She’s lived this truth: that even when we feel like we have nothing left, God is always enough. Lean in close, friend—this is a story you don’t want to miss. It’s a joy to welcome Courtney to the farm’s table today…

Guest post by Courtney Pray Duke

On a Friday afternoon, I summoned the courage to tackle an item on my to-do list that I’d been avoiding.

I scrounged through my messy files to find my husband Andrew’s death certificate.

I hated even looking at it, but the utility companies required me to show up in person with the death certificate to switch the accounts to my name.

“Kids, hop in the car,” I said. “We have an errand to run.”

After they buckled in, off we went to the water company. The only person in the room was a bespectacled lady sitting behind a desk. I approached, introduced myself, and handed her the document. She glanced down at it through her bifocals, and I watched as she took it all in—how recent Andrew’s death was, how young I was, and the fact that my three kids were making their presence known in the waiting area. 

After entering my information into her computer, she handed back the documents with tears in her eyes. 

The kids’ noise level escalated on the drive back home, rattling my fragile nerves and further testing my limits. What do I do with all this?

Step by step, meal by meal, and mess by mess, our little family was doing its best to keep going.

“My fears didn’t scare him, and my disappointments didn’t disappoint him. I needed him to show up—to speak to my questions, doubts, fears, and disappointments. “

Every day had heartbreaks, setbacks, and unknowns, and I needed a tangible action step to forge my way through them.

I adopted a new mantra: “God, I trust you.” It was a war cry in the heat of a bloody battle, even though it mostly came out as a whisper. It was my go-to response when life insisted on taking me out—a prayer I could say out loud, anywhere, anytime, on repeat, even when I didn’t feel like saying it.

When I drove in the garage and saw that Andrew’s bike hook was still empty: “God, I trust you.”

When a rush of panic about my future came over me in the middle of the night: “God, I trust you.”

When the silence felt deafening, the loneliness stifling, and the weight of being a single mom overwhelming: “God, I trust you.”

I didn’t always say it nicely. Sometimes I said it with a “Show me what you’re made of” tone. I needed him to be everything he promised he would be. My fears didn’t scare him, and my disappointments didn’t disappoint him. I needed him to show up—to speak to my questions, doubts, fears, and disappointments.

I knew his promises were true, and I was holding on to them with a white-knuckle grip, even though some days it felt like his promises were a foreign language to my situation. Yet I believed he was working even when I couldn’t see it or feel it. So I decided to speak trust until I could see it and feel it.

It felt like both a blink and an eternity since Andrew had been gone. One night I was having a hard time sleeping, so I googled “widow in the Bible.” 

The search results led me to the widow of Zarephath in 1 Kings 17. There was a drought in the land, and she was gathering sticks to cook one last meal for herself and her son because they had run out of both food and hope. And it was at this precise moment that God sent the prophet Elijah to the widow to ask for food.

She replied: “I don’t have any bread—only a handful of flour in a jar and a little oil in a jug. I am gathering a few sticks to take home and make a meal for myself and my son, that we may eat it—and die.”

“What if my deficiency was merely the prelude to God’s sufficiency?“

Elijah said to her, “Don’t be afraid. Go home and do as you have said. But first make a small loaf of bread for me from what you have and bring it to me, and then make something for yourself and your son. For this is what the Lord, the God of Israel says: ‘The jar of flour will not be used up and the jug of oil will not run dry until the day the Lord gives rain on the land.’ ”

She went away and did as Elijah had told her. So there was food every day for Elijah and for the woman and her family. For the jar of flour was not used up and the jug of oil did not run dry, in keeping with the word of the Lord spoken by Elijah. (1 Kings 17:10–16)

Don’t be afraid.It was the first thing Elijah said to the widow after she acknowledged her desperate situation—because fear is what you feel when you have nothing left.

She had taken inventory of her deficiencies, and she knew what little she had. And yet, a handful of flour and a little oil in the jug, which didn’t seem like much, was more than enough for God.It was the widow’s obedience, her willingness to offer up the only thing she had, that God multiplied into a miraculous, lifesaving blessing. God fulfilled his promise, and they had all they needed. Her little became much when she placed it in God’s hands.

I had been living with a scarcity mindset, focused only on what little I had left.

But what if that was precisely what God wanted from me—to surrender what little I had in trust and obedience? What if my deficiency was merely the prelude to God’s sufficiency?

Without Andrew, my house was emptier, my heart was full of pain, and my dreams were nothing but dust.

“Nothing surrendered to the hands of a loving God is ever wasted.“

Were these things God could use? Could my devastation become the very thing God might use to save me—to bless my life and bring about my destiny? Could my nothing be the key that unlocks his everything?

With each passing day, God was reminding me, Do not despise these small things, these small beginnings. I delight in them. My little was his much. Slowly, I was beginning to understand that the small things were actually the big things. The kingdom of God is upside down, even in my messy middle.

A tear, a seed, a war cry, a step, flour and oil. Nothing is too small.

Nothing surrendered to the hands of a loving God is ever wasted.

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