United States of America
Trusting God’s Timing Through the Tears
“To everything there is a season, a time for every purpose under heaven… a time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance.”
— Ecclesiastes 3:1,4
Grief doesn’t wait for an invitation. It crashes into our lives like a wave, often without warning—and in my case, it came with a phone call that shattered my world. My father, my hero, had been killed in a car accident. Just like that, the man who had once jumped out of airplanes with the 101st Airborne, graduated college against the odds, walked the halls of political power as a lobbyist, and rose to become a top salesman, and a family man was gone.
I remember the funeral vividly. As I stood over his coffin, I leaned in to look at him one last time. I studied his face, trying to memorize it, afraid to forget any detail. My heart ached with questions. Why now, Lord? Why him?
But grief, while cruel, has a strange way of leading us back to grace.
Fast forward to 2007. I was working at the White House—a dream I carried in part because of my father’s belief in me. One day, I received an email from one of his former clients. He invited me to lunch. Sitting across the table from this man, I was taken aback when he said, “I feel like I’m sitting across from your father.”
Goosebumps rose on my arms. I felt a warmth, a closeness to my dad that I hadn’t felt since the day we buried him. It was as if God reached down through the years and reminded me: He’s not forgotten. And neither are you.
After lunch, I walked back to the White House gate, my heart full in a way that surprised me. My boss noticed the tears on my face and asked if I was okay. I nodded slowly and said, “I just had the best day of my life.”
The pain of grief had not vanished—but it was now pierced with purpose.
I don’t pretend to understand why God allows our hearts to break. But I know this: His timing is perfect, even when it feels unbearable. He sees the end from the beginning. The seeds of sorrow planted in the soil of faith will one day bloom into joy.
God used my father’s legacy to touch me even years after his passing. He orchestrated a moment that reminded me that who my dad was still matters—and so do I.
If you’re grieving, don’t rush the process. Don’t minimize the ache. Instead, bring it to God. He knows the weight of loss. After all, He gave His only Son for us.
But also—wait. Watch. Trust.
God’s timing rarely makes sense in the moment. But one day, when the pieces come together, you’ll see the fingerprints of grace all over your story. Just like I did.
Heather S. Wolf
United States of America
My father passed away suddenly three years ago. I have been pretty numb since then, having had a very complicated relationship with him. I loved him and miss him, but it’s been difficult to grieve. In looking back over the last year with him, it was amazing to see how the Lord orchestrated our last days with him.
The first thing I noticed in hindsight was that he spent a weekend with my daughter Brittney in Asheville in August of 2022. They had the best time together, so much so that she made a point of telling me how fun it was! My dad could be moody but the entire time he was happy and carefree and she noticed and was so filled in her soul with love for him.
The second marvel was that he spent Christmas with my family in December. We had not had a Christmas alone with him since I was 5 or 6 years old. All our holidays were spent with our stepmother and their children and were not fun to say the least. That Christmas was amazing! He was so grateful to be with us and we were amazed at how wonderful our Christmas was!
In February, one week before he died, my sister had a 50th birthday party for herself in Florida. My dad was not planning on coming but changed his mind at the last minute. The entire weekend was incredible!! There was so much laughter, love and joy! The whole family was there, except for Brittney, who couldn’t make it because of work. During the weekend, I noticed him talking a lot with my father in law, who is a devout Christian and I learned what they talked about a week later. I also marveled at the connection he made with my great niece, his great granddaughter. As I watched him playing tea party with her and giving her gifts, the love between them was so beautiful that it made me tear up as I took pictures and I had the faintest thought that this was the last time he would see her. On the last day of the weekend, we all went out to breakfast. As we were eating my dad felt overwhelmed with emotion and stood up and gave a speech…it was his goodbye but we didn’t know it. There was not a dry eye when he finished.
One week later my father had two massive strokes and passed away in hospice care on my deceased brother’s birthday.
During that time, my father-in-law told me what they had talked about all weekend. My dad was confessing his sins and Joe was ministering to him about heaven and assuring him that he would be going there when his time came.
I can’t even explain the goodness of God in the chain of events leading up to my father’s passing but it has kept me during this time of grief and it helps greatly to know that God orchestrated it all for one last year of restoration and healing with my dad and for my sister and I to know that he was with Jesus.
Jodi
United States of America
It was going hundreds of miles an hour. It was thousands of miles in the sky. It was a seat.
And I was buckled in it. Gazing through the compact oblique window, I saw endless hues of pastel blues puckered with cascading shades of curly, swirly cotton-candy clouds. The sunlight reflected the joy in my heart pulsing from the grateful satisfaction of a deferred hope fulfilled at long last. Reunion. Reconciliation. Reconnection. What I thought might never happen was, indeed, happening.
The cantankerous roar of the airplane’s turbines was a stark contrast to the calm purring within me. Recalling the strange series of events that landed me in the airboat getting ready to land at JFK airport in the bustling Big Apple slid me into cruise control. Strange as it might have seemed to others. Miraculous it was to me.
A gentle unyielding whisper from the Holy Spirit within birthed the entire outcome. “Just type his name in the search bar.” That was all God asked of me. A simple obedience. Such a small request. Yet one that required my faith to bound like a gazelle. It had been so long since I had spoken with him — seen him, felt his embrace, heard him utter my name — that I didn’t know if I’d spell his name correctly. So many ordinary moons had passed before this once-in-a-blue moon occasion. Would I even recognize him if his face appeared on the screen?
“Go ahead, put his name in the search bar.” There was that prod again stoking the fire of hope. The very breath of God was breathing on the embers of my faith into full flame. Was it spelled with a “w” or a “u?” Was it with or without a “y?” Maybe I should spell it both ways to cover all my bases. My typing stuttered and hesitated as I gave God my simple yes. I went with the most common spelling I thought of. D-w-a-y-n-e and pressed enter. There, I did it. Part of me felt foolish. God claimed it and reframed it as zealous.
I didn’t know I was holding my breath when a list of profile results popped up on the Facebook page. I scrolled searching. Each blink of my eyes reverberated a prayer against disappointment.
I paged down and down, stopping for but a moment when one man’s image tickled a place in my soul. But apprehension caused me to scroll on a little further. It wasn’t until the Holy Spirit nudged me again that I dared to go back and click on the man’s name, D-u-a-n-e. Behold – it was my long-lost father, despite my misspelling and all.
“Hi, my name is De’Siree. I saw my name listed on your profile page. And I think I’m the daughter you’re looking for.” “Hello, beloved. I’m your father. I’ve never stopped loving you. How I’ve missed you.” The plane had landed. The cabin was on the ground but strolling from it felt like walking on air. I arrived at the luggage carousel. And he was there with my grandpa, both waiting for me with the same joy of a deferred hope fulfilled years and years at last.
Reunited, and reconnected, with the man and the family I had lost when I was around 4 or 5 years old. I was 18 then. And God had restored all the years the locust had eaten. Impossible you say? Perhaps for others. But for God? Not at all.
The improbable, becomes possible even with the smallest yes, with the most meager step of obedience in God’s direction, with a mustard seed of faith, and the slightest spark of courage to hope. Nothing’s impossible for the God who makes all things possible to those who trust, believe, and
take Him at His word. God voids the impossible because His word doesn’t return to Him void.
by De’Siree N. Reeves
