Timing is everything on stage, but it's way too variable in real life.
After moving from Hawaii, my husband and I arrived at my mom's house in Missouri on a Wednesday and the following Saturday she ended up the hospital. She came home on Thursday, then the following Monday at breakfast she pitched face forward into the table. Because she's lived alone since my stepfather died almost nine years ago, if we hadn't been there, she would have fallen from her tall dining chair and been hurt, not just sick. The doctors have finally figured out at least part of what's wrong with her, but it'll be awhile before she's feeling well enough to live by herself again, so it's a good thing we just moved here and don't yet have a place of our own.
Also related to our move, this past Monday we drove 150 miles to get to my daughter's apartment, arriving as the mailman was climbing out of his truck with one of the 11 packages that had been mailed from Hawaii for us exactly three weeks before. If we hadn't arrived at that time, he would have had to tote all those boxes up to Cari's third floor apartment, then we would have had to bring them back down again.
On the other hand, Thursday morning, my husband's birthday, we woke up to discover that the furnace wasn't working. It was 61 degrees in the house, way too cold for the comfort of two people who moved from Hawaii just over a month ago. Turns out it was the igniter which goes out about every five years. Mom moved into this house five years ago.
Timing. Does it show God's favor or his disfavor? It would be very tempting to think that the positive timing events were God smiling on us, but then what are the negative timing events? Are they God's frown?
I'm not going to deny that it was a huge blessing to be able to take our packages out of the mail truck and put them right in our trunk, but I am going to deny that the furnace going out on Paul's birthday was a sign of God's disfavor. I'm pretty sure that it was a character building event, especially since I was rather ticked off at God when we had to wait until 2:30 in the afternoon for the repairman to show up. It didn't throw off our plans too much, and we still got to do the most important part of those plans - go out for dinner in honor of Paul's birthday. So I have to say that the blessing was that I got to practice living peacefully in spite of a negative situation. Unfortunately the practice was more like a middle schooler practicing layups than a pro basketball player practicing.
I guess that means I need more practice. Yikes!
