Prophesies are not always ominous or kingdom-shat-tering.  In the instance of Elijah and the widow of Zarephath, the issue was providing food for a family.
      Elijah met the woman at the city gate after obeying God's command to journey to Zarephath.  There he requested of her water and bread.  She responded that she was so poor that she had only a little flour and oil; she was planning to use the last of it to prepare a meal for herself and her son.  After this she fully expected to starve to death.  Elijah told her to prepare the meal as planned--but first to make him a little bread.  When she did that he told her, "The Lord will see to it that your flour bin and oil jar remain full."
      And, to the woman's amazement, this happened.  A short time later her son became ill and died.  In her anguish she questioned the fairness of Elijah and his God.  So Elijah took the child upstairs and prayed for the child to be brought back to life.  He stretched his body over the corpse and God warmed the body and breathed life back into the boy.  The woman could no longer doubt. "Now," she said, "I know you are a godly man and the Lord has given you His truth to preach."
      Other issues for this prophet from Gilead were significant on a national level.  Elijah was a contemporary of King Ahab and wicked Queen Jezebel of the northern kingdom of Israel.  Under Ahab, the people worshipped Baal instead of God.
      Elijah, who in Ahab's words was the "troubler of Israel," challenged the king and his Baal-worshipping prophets to a contest on Mount Carmel.  Crowds of Israelites stood by as witnesses.  He proposed that two bulls be sacrificed by fire.  Ahab's prophets would summon Baal to light the fire beneath their sacrifice, then Elijah would call on the name of the Lord to ignite his offering.
      Elijah had great fun mocking the futile, frantic, protracted attempts of the heathen prophets to get Baal to do something--anything at all.  "Perhaps Baal is busy with other things," Elijah taunted, "or away on a trip.  Maybe he's asleep and doesn't want to be bothered."  All day long they tried to cajole Baal into lighting the fire.  Of course, nothing happened.  Finally they gave up.
      When it was his turn, Elijah set up God's miracle with a flourish.  He built an altar with twelve stones, symbolic of the twelve tribes of Israel.  He dug a trench around it, laid on the wood, and put the meat of the bull on the wood.  Then he ordered everything thoroughly drenched with water, making it seemingly impossible for a fire to burn.  The trench surrounding the altar was filled with water.  Elijah then prayed to God to turn the people's hearts back to Him.
      God not only lit the wet altar but made the fire so intense it dried up the surrounding trench.  The people were quite convinced.  They rounded up the heathen prophets, and Elijah executed them.
      When Queen Jezebel heard the news, she vowed to kill Elijah and the remainder of the prophet's life was spent in tension and confrontation with Ahab and Jezebel, and their successor Ahaziah.  Elijah performed dramatic miracles which affirmed God's power and glory.
      And Elijah did not die.  Instead, as he was walking with the prophet Elisha, a chariot fire appeared and Elijah was carried upward in a whirlwind.  Centuries later the apostles Peter, James, and John saw Elijah appear with Jesus at the Transfiguration, and the Bible tells us Elijah himself will return before the final judgement.  Clearly, Elijah was a prophet of unique importance with a role to play in God's kingdom far beyond his earthly generation.