Do you ever wonder about God’s timing?  I mean, have you ever found yourself telling God not only your needs, but also a specific timetable in which you’d like those needs met?  Since early this year when we were given approval to go to Cameroon, pending adequate support, I have put that request before God, along with a suggestion as to a schedule of events leading up to our eventual departure. 

Strangely, God was not influenced to follow my advice.  If He had done, we’d have gathered all our needed support pledges by May.  We’d have arrived in Yaounde, Cameroon in July and would be there now – making plans to spend Christmas break at the beach in the coast town of Kribi.  But events have not gone according to my plans and I’m tempted to panic or get really down, wondering if we’ll ever be able to go.

Just last week I was reminded that while it seems like He’s forgotten us and our desire to be serving Him in Africa again, He’s just waiting for the right time.  This point was illustrated by a cat that strayed into our lives.

“Jesse” as Michelle and her friends named him, started showing up around the neighborhood in the summer.  He seemed to flit from house to house, looking for handouts.  He had a pronounced limp, and when Michelle was able to earn his trust and take a look at the paw, she saw that the pad was badly damaged.  Over time the wound healed, but the limp persisted.  By fall he was quite thin, spent more time in our yard, and didn’t seem to have a home to go to. 

Ron’s tender heart for animals has been passed on to Michelle and the boys, who started feeding the poor wounded stray.  At  first the kids gave him slices of bologna and whole cans of tuna, which seemed a little extravagant to me.  So Ron suggested buying cat food.  They fed him at the back door to the deck.  He slept on a deck chair and soaked up all the love and attention Ron and the kids would give.  It would have been great to adopt the little stray except for my allergies.  Though I love cats, I neither touched nor allowed poor Jessie in the house; I found breathing more important than housing a stray.  We informed friends and family that Jessie needed a home, but no one was able to take him in.

Well, the days got shorter and colder as the months went along.  Ron built him a little wooden shelter on the deck, and we wondered what would happen to him once the snow flies.  Ron called a local “no-kill” cat shelter, but it was full.  Would there be an opening before winter set in?  Would the cat be ok outside?  Should we bring him in to the garage at least?  By mid-November we had serious concerns.  We even prayed with the kids that God would protect Jessie on cold nights.

Suddenly one day the week of Thanksgiving, we got a call from the no-kill shelter.  Hearing that Jessie had an injured paw, they made room for him!  An appointment was made to take him to a certain vet the following Tuesday where we would sign him over to the shelter.  As it turns out, this was the last possible day that we would be free to take him in before the first snow of the season – in which over a foot of snow fell on the deck where Jessie had slept. 

If God is watching an injured stray cat, protecting him from the snow storm and providing him a shelter, how much more is He watching us, for whom he died and rose again in order to give abundant life, eternal life.  God’s timing is perfect – never too late, never too early, just right on time.  And we trust Him to schedule our return to Africa at just the right time.