The God of Perfect Timing
One thing God has placed on my heart and completely surprised me with took place in the fall of 2019. I had been writing for the glory of God for already two and a half years, blogging and freelancing. However, I had always dreamed of writing and publishing a book. I conducted some research and considered creating a devotional or Bible study, as this was my usual style of writing.
Friend, has God nudged you to do something that you thought made no sense at all and for which you felt completely unprepared? I guess you nod in agreement now.
God utterly surprised me by imprinting on my heart that I should write a memoir about the most difficult years for me and my marriage when I struggled with infertility, anxiety disorder, and panic attacks. These were also the years of the greatest spiritual growth I experienced. My marriage was healed, and my husband accepted Jesus as his Lord and Savior during this extremely challenging period.
I was not thrilled at the prospect.
Lord, a memoir? Are you sure? I have no idea how to write a good memoir, and memoirs are the hardest to find a publisher for and to sell, especially if I am not an established name. I feel completely unqualified and unprepared, Lord. This seems too big for me, exceeding my capacity.
But the Lord continued to pull at my heart, and I said “yes” with a trembling heart. This project felt to me as if I needed to climb Mount Everest. First, it was the way of writing. I bought books about writing a memoir; I enrolled in courses and joined Facebook memoir groups. It was a huge learning curve. Besides, there was the emotional side to it. Writing about the most painful events and struggles in my life was taking an emotional toll on me.
But I didn’t quit. First, I went through all my journals for the past seven years and wrote a document containing relevant notes. Then I began the real work: paragraph by paragraph, chapter by chapter. I read some of the chapters to my husband because he played a major role in the memoir. I remember him crying most of the time while I was reading. It was, if he experienced one more layer of internal healing while listening to my words. I learned how to structure a memoir, how to write good dialogue, how to build emotional arcs, and many other powerful writing tools. In March 2020, the first draft of my memoir was ready. Then, I began the revisions and completed them in about a month.
My next step, in blessed ignorance and naivete, was to start pitching the memoir to agents and publishers. Rejections kept piling on. I was disappointed and couldn’t understand.
Why, Lord? Why did you make me write a memoir, which nobody wants to publish?
The reasons they pointed out were different: not interested, too small a platform, it doesn’t fit, and so on. It didn’t make sense to me. It seemed the next logical step to have the memoir published and not stay buried on my laptop.
Then, at the end of June 2020, my world was suddenly turned upside down. My husband was admitted to the hospital and underwent emergency heart surgery. Unfortunately, he developed post-surgery complications, and after staying for roughly two weeks in the hospital, undergoing two more surgeries, and being put into an artificial coma, he died on the 5th of July 2020, at 55.
My whole world died with him. I couldn’t believe this happened despite my desperate prayers and pleas. The person who was my best friend, my closest person, and my family was gone. I lost the life as I knew it, the life I deeply cherished. In my eyes, his death was completely untimely and cruel.
Why, Lord? Why did you heal both of us and our marriage, just to put an end to it? I don’t understand.
The terrible loss of my husband led to another painful transition–I left our home in Austria and moved to Bulgaria, where my relatives lived, and I had a bigger support network. The memoir was forgotten, at least for the first couple of years of intense grief and sadness.
One day it dawned on me that the Lord, Who is never late and never too early, urged me to write the memoir of our story with my husband precisely before his untimely death. I knew that I would be incapable of writing this memoir after his death. It would have been too painful. This new understanding brought me a little comfort, re-assuring me that God is, as always, in control of all events and details of my life and that He remains trustworthy. I don’t need to understand completely to trust Him.
I started to pitch the memoir again. And nothing–rejection after rejection. So, after trying for a year or two, I gave up and concluded it was not the right time, God’s time.
Then, in summer 2024, one publisher said they wanted to publish the memoir. I was excited. But after the initial exchange of emails, I didn’t hear any more from the publisher, which was quite puzzling. Again, I didn’t understand, but I reminded myself of the truth that “He has made everything beautiful in its time” (Ecclesiastes 3:11). God knew it was still not the best time for the memoir. A year after that, I felt prompted to contact this publisher again. I didn’t have any expectations. So, God surprised me again when the publisher confirmed their interest and signed a contract with me in September 2025.
I realized how patient and tender God was with me when I started working on the developmental edits. This was hard work that drained me emotionally. Going back to my memories of our life with my husband brought new surges of grief. But with the Lord’s help, I was able to deal with them in a healthy way, and complete the edits successfully. God knew perfectly well that I would not be ready to handle this kind of work any earlier. So, He picked the perfect moment of my healing journey when He knew I would be healed enough to handle this. Once again, I stood in awe of God’s perfect timing, tender care, unfailing faithfulness, amazing wisdom, and sovereignty.
My journey continues. I know I can trust God completely with all the details and the right time for everything in my life. Because “there is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens” (Ecclesiastes 3:1).
0 Comments