Timing

*This is a post from July 2011-  I wanted to repost it for the women in my life that are hurting, lonely, or just frustrated about circumstances right now, and who need a gentle, loving reminder that they have not been forgotten by the One who holds time in His hands. 

Timing. 

It's one of those concepts that rarely has gone according my plans. 

I had a nice, neat timeline planned out for my life upon graduating from high school. 

• College in four years. 
• Teach elementary school for the rest of my life. 
• Get married at around 26 or 27.   Preferably to a professional athlete.  Definitely NOT to anyone in ministry.
• Kids by late 20's.  And just two of them. 

Instead, what I got was...

• College in 3 1/2 years. (Nerd alert.)
• Taught fifth grade for 5 years and got burned out. 
• In and and out of long term relationships.
• Went into full time supported ministry as a single girl.
• Got married at 32  
• An adorable 11-month foster baby, baby boy who's adoption is not yet complete, and teenage boys living with us for months at a time
• A big, hairy lab and a scrawny neurotic mutt that eat most inanimate objects my house. 

Not my timing.  Not my plan.  

As I look back, I can honestly say that I am so grateful for the way it has played out.  My life has looked nothing like I planned, yet it's been everything that I needed. 

But for a lot of my twenties, there were many questions, heartache, and doubt. 

The story wasn't playing out the way I had written it. 

I had questioned whether God had forgotten about me.  Why it seemed like everyone else kept having new chapters written in their lives and mine stayed on the same page. 

And as I have had the chance to spend some quality time with some my best girlfriends from all over the country this past month, it seems like this concept of timing is a rough one for a lot of us women. 

Many of the women in my life, in varying age ranges and stages, are sitting in lives where their dreams have been unmet, or shattered, or abandoned. 

Single. 

Married and hurting.

Childless.

Purposeless. 

Exhausted.

Just, plain lonely. 

A fellow adopting mom shared this statement on one of the yahoo groups I'm a part of and I loved it: 

"Where we see time.  God's sees timing." 

God's timing never matches our own.  His perspective is so much wider, deeper, and full of more wisdom then we can ever grasp. 

When I look at timing in my own small brain and hands, I always, always, always jump to what I don't have, what I haven't achieved, and how far "behind" I am than everyone else around me. 

Even as some dreams have been answered, I can still focus instead on the dreams deferred. 

However, when I choose to trust that each word, each page, and each chapter of the course of my life has happened in God's perfect and loving timing, then I am at peace.  Only then. 

"You do not realize now what I am doing, but later you will understand." 

 John 13:7. 

What a sweet and loving promise to cling to when our current circumstances are not what we dreamed them to be.