PERFECT TIMING

As Christians, we know that God's timing is not always our timing. It can be a struggle to reconcile God's timing with our desire to get an answer to prayer right now—not in the future. It can be just as hard to understand why God does things when He does: Why didn't we get that promotion? Why wasn't a loved one healed when we prayed so hard? Why didn't we come to Christ earlier? Most of us can also recall something wonderful, even inexplicable, that happened because all the elements came together with perfect timing, an insight that may come long after the event itself.

The question of God's timing is a big one. Scripture tells us that Jesus was born "in the fullness of time," but not when and how most people expected, and as our Savior, Jesus trusted God the Father to unfold the time of Jesus’ death. We anticipate but do not know when Christ will return, a time known only to the Father. Trusting God is the fundamental piece of knowing that things will happen in God's time.

I was reminded of God's mysterious timing very recently. A few days before Thanksgiving, I received one of those telephone calls that come out of the blue. A kindly man in his mid-80s had, through persistency and "luck," found me. He identified himself as a friend of my mother's in her teenage years. Now, this goes back to the late 1930s, coming off The Great Depression and entering World War II, when life was uncertain and our country was deeply challenged.

Bob Pate had actually been engaged to my mother, and they were deeply in love, hoping for his safe return from his military service in several combat missions, including Okinawa. In 1943, he received a letter from my mother saying that she loved him but had met someone special and was sorry to end her engagement. Bob said he took the news very hard and for a time was both hurt and angry, not even responding to her letter.

By the grace of God, as he said, he eventually returned to his country after the war ended, and his life went on. He had one letter, written in 1943, from my mother (who was by then married to my father) wanting to make sure that things were OK with him, and he wrote back and wished Mother happiness. That was the last contact he had with her. My mother died 20 years later at the age of 39.

Forty-two years after her death, Bob Pate found me. By remembering my mother's married name, he painstakingly followed the trail. Why would Bob seek me out after so many years? In part, he recognizes that his years are limited, and I suspect that he hoped to find my mother to heal any lingering hurt, and in a deeply caring way, he wanted to know how Mother's life turned out.

What he gave to me was history: information, pictures, descriptions about my mother's younger years, years that she was reluctant to talk about because of her hardships. Bob described the life of teenagers in New York City, his growing affection for my mother, the lives of her parents and the realities of the war. He described his dangerous combat stints and attributes his survival to God's hand. Today, we both have our own families, but Bob and I share a special bond through one person and a belief that it was God who finally connected us.

I've asked myself why God waited so long to make this happen, but know that I cannot explain God's timing. However, I do know that had I learned this information earlier in my life, it would not have meant as much to me because my own heart was not in fullness. I could not have appreciated what this desire to connect says about the kind of man Bob is and certainly his respect for my mother. Bob gave me a missing piece of my mother's life and therefore my own life. I can trust that the timing was perfect.

— Leia Francisco

Courtesy of The Church of the Good Shepherd United Methodist