JUST IN TIME
Written by Patsy Pearson
All day long, I had been
blinking back tears as I thought about Bob and how much I missed him. It had
been more than six months since he passed away from complications of
Parkinson’s disease, but some days the melancholy thoughts and songs just
wouldn’t leave my mind. That day, after returning from my errands, I just
needed to go down the hall of our condominium to get the mail and hoped that I
wouldn’t meet anyone. When I stepped back into our apartment, I could no longer
hold back the tears.
As I looked at my small
stack of mail, I saw a blue envelope lying on top with my friend Judy’s return
address in the corner. It was not my birthday nor was it a special holiday.
Instead, it was just a friendship card with “happy fall” in Judy’s handwriting.
I have learned through
the years to open cards from Judy carefully, as clippings of articles,
confetti, humorous tidbits, photocopies of old hymns, and scripture verses
often fall out. That day, there were 22 separate papers that fell out of Judy’s
card, and it seemed that every one of them was just what I needed. God knew
when I would need it and he prompted Judy to put the envelope in the mail five
days earlier out in California. I felt a great sense of being loved—not just by
my friend, but by God’s care for me—at just the right time.
There are times when I
don’t feel like God is there soon enough. I’m influenced by our modern
culture’s expectations of instant fulfillment, and I can be impatient for God
to move more quickly. But as I look back on my experiences and my life, I
realize that God always brings the answer in time.
One of the hardest things
for me to do is to wait. If I think that I know what needs to be done, I’m
ready to proceed. I like to get my ducks in a row, and often feel that the
longer I have to wait, the more likely that the ducks will all go off in
different directions!
Yet I have found that God
never wastes the waiting time. It becomes a time when he does something in me
that needs to be done. He helps me mature in the waiting time.
We read in Scripture of
many who had to wait for God’s promises to come about. Moses had to wait 40
years to take the leadership role God called him to. Joseph had a vision from
God but had to wait many years, even languishing in prison, before God
fulfilled that vision.
Maybe you feel like God
has you “on hold” right now. Ask him what he has for you to learn while you
wait and, in the meantime, keep doing what you feel that he’s called you to in
the recent past.
I King 8:56 tells us “not
one word has failed of all the good promises he gave.” The God we serve is
faithful, and he will be on time—just when we need him.
Written by Patsy Person and published with permission.
