God’s Timing Is Perfect
It can be hard to wait on God. I know you’ve felt that at some point in your single-parent life. My friend Sarah thought her life was perfect. She married her high school sweetheart and had a little boy, and then while he was just a toddler she got pregnant again. When she was giving birth to her daughter, her husband was out making another baby. Of course, Sarah was crushed. She now had a toddler and a newborn and was getting a divorce. She worked in the after-school program in the local elementary school, but that hardly paid enough to support her and her two kids.
Sarah was a Christian with a strong faith walk. At the time, she couldn’t understand where God was during all of this. She had always depended upon God and followed biblical standards for her life, but this was just too much to comprehend.
Over the next few years, Sarah went back to school and got her degree. While she was in college, working in the after-school program, and caring for two very young children, she applied for a Habitat for Humanity house. She would have to put in 150 hours of labor to get her home. At Habitat for Humanity you don’t necessarily work on your own house; you just have to put in the hours, and friends can help you collect the hours by working under your name. Her family and several of our single-parent friends at church helped her put in the hours to qualify.
As soon as she got her degree and had finished student teaching, she applied for a temporary teaching position. It was in the middle of the year, and she got the job, even though it is almost unheard of for a school to hire someone straight out of college and over other applicants with more experience. But the Lord knew Sarah needed this position. When the school year was over, they hired her full-time. All in God’s timing.
Through all of this, Satan kept throwing up roadblocks. For instance, after Sarah had filled out the paper work for the house, she got a call from Habitat for Humanity at her after-school job telling her that if she was a single parent they would need a copy of her divorce decree. The problem was she didn’t have the decree yet, and so she went home feeling rejected and alone. When she opened the mail, there was her decree.
Another setback was that when the Habitat award came through, the house was more than forty miles away. There was no way she could afford the gas or the time to travel almost an hour to school, day care, and work each day. Sarah had applied for a house in the area where she was working and in the school district where she had hoped to get a job; in a few weeks another house opened up in our area and Sarah got it.
When she moved into her house, some of us from church helped her paint the rooms, and others brought over furniture for her and the kids. In no time, her house was looking like a home. For Sarah, sometimes it was hard to wait on the Lord, and I know that many times she felt alone and desperate for companionship as she struggled over decisions. More than once I picked up the phone to hear her weeping on the other end.
The story about the widow of Zarephath in 1 Kings 17 can give single parents hope as we struggle. There are times when every single parent feels alone and desperate to survive and provide for his or her children. Through reading the story of the widow of Zarephath, you’ll be able to see how God’s timing is perfect for each situation. It is a story about how one single parent in the Bible listened to God and was able to develop ministering faith.
A little history before we read the story: Ahab was a very wicked king. In the first verse of chapter 17, Elijah explained to King Ahab, “As the Lord, the God of Israel, lives, whom I serve, there will be neither dew nor rain in the next few years except at my word.”
The Lord then gave Elijah the following instructions in verses 2–8:
Then the word of the Lord came to Elijah: “Leave here, turn eastward and hide in the Kerith Ravine, east of the Jordan. You will drink from the brook, and I have ordered the ravens to feed you there.”
So he did what the Lord had told him. He went to the Kerith Ravine, east of the Jordan, and stayed there. The ravens brought him bread and meat in the morning and bread and meat in the evening, and he drank from the brook.
Some time later the brook dried up because there had been no rain in the land. Then the word of the Lord came to him.
In verse 9 we first hear about the widow of Zarephath:
“Go at once to Zarephath of Sidon and stay there. I have commanded a widow in that place to supply you with food.” So he went to Zarephath. When he came to the town gate, a widow was there gathering sticks. He called to her and asked, “Would you bring me a little water in a jar so I may have a drink?” As she was going to get it, he called, “And bring me, please, a piece of bread.”
vv. 9–11
Did you take note that out of all the people in Zarephath, he approached a widow, a single mother raising a child?
“‘As surely as the Lord your God lives,’ she replied, ‘I don’t have any bread—only a handful of flour in a jar and a little oil in a jug. I am gathering a few sticks to take home and make a meal for myself and my son, that we may eat it—and die’” (v. 12).
Why do you think this widow trusted in God? Do you think she had any hope that she and her son would be saved from death?
She must have been a caring mom, and she must have felt very alone. Her mind was on providing for her son and taking care of his needs, even though it might have been the last time she did. Still, she had the presence of mind to provide a jar of water for the man of God.
Here’s what we can glean from this story:
Elijah said to her, “Don’t be afraid. Go home and do as you have said. But first make a small cake of bread for me from what you have and bring it to me, and then make something for yourself and your son. For this is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: ‘The jar of flour will not be used up and the jug of oil will not run dry until the day the Lord gives rain on the land.’”
She went away and did as Elijah had told her. So there was food every day for Elijah and for the woman and her family. For the jar of flour was not used up and the jug of oil did not run dry, in keeping with the word of the Lord spoken by Elijah.
vv. 13–16
It’s interesting to look at the order of the things the man of God tells this widow to do and what will happen.
God is a God of order. Even though we might not understand the order, He does things according to His plan. Sometimes it is hard to see that God has the situation in hand. We get impatient. We want things to happen on our time line. It can be hard to keep the faith and believe everything is going to work out in God’s timing.
The man of God could have come after the woman had used up the flour and oil, but that wouldn’t have been the order God designed for this situation—forcing her to be generous with her meager remaining food. God could have caused it to rain, but then the woman wouldn’t have had to trust in the man of God. God always has a reason for His order. When we follow God’s model of order, whether it is orderliness in our homes, in our thoughts, in our actions, etc., it can bring safety and calmness to our situation. Just as the man of God told the widow, don’t be afraid.
Order Carried Over into Our Homes
A surprising aspect of patiently waiting on God’s timing is living our lives with order. Order can be an important part of peace in our lives and can encompass many aspects of our home, including but not limited to clutter and messes, schedules, organization, and fights among siblings.
Consistent schedules can be difficult in single-parent homes, especially when kids are traveling back and forth between parents every other week. Organization can be hard for a single parent working long hours or overtime just to make ends meet. For some single parents, the stress, inconsistent schedules, children traveling back and forth, and disorganization can lead to clutter. I mean, who has time to clean?
There are studies that indicate disorder and clutter can cause anxiety.1 But “rarely is clutter recognized as a source of stress in our lives,” writes Sherrie Bourg Carter in the article “Why Mess Causes Stress: 8 Reasons, 8 Remedies”: “Clutter bombards our minds with excessive stimuli (visual, olfactory, tactile), causing our senses to work overtime on stimuli that aren’t necessary or important.”2
A study by the Princeton Neuroscience Institute found that “when your environment is cluttered, the chaos restricts your ability to focus. The clutter also limits your brain’s ability to process information. Clutter makes you distracted and unable to process information as well as you do in an uncluttered, organized, and serene environment.”3
I know that when I first became a single parent, things in my house were a mess. I didn’t have the energy to care what things looked like. But as time went on and I got healthy and strong, it dawned on me what a disaster my home was. Piles of clothes, piles of dishes on the kitchen counter, piles of papers and magazines and notes. All those piles made me anxious, and they also affected my kids.
I got busy and got things organized. My son was always an organized kid, keeping his little cars in a straight line, his stuffed animals just so in his bed, etc. But my daughter, now that was a different story. I always thought she was disorganized, but after she joined the air force I found out she just had a different system of organization than I did. In the air force, she received a special award for her organizational skills. I called her and said, “You got an award for your organizational skills? But your room was always a mess with clothes everywhere!” She replied, “I was organized. I had a pile of clean clothes, a pile of dirty clothes, and a pile of dirty-but-I-could-still-wear-them-if-needed clothes. My organizational skills are just different from yours.”
Little children like and need order in their lives. When a parent dies, the order is gone. When a divorce happens, order is gone. Where there were two parents, now there is only one in the home. Some kids act out when there is no order, while others become anxious and nervous.
In our early childhood program, we had a three-year-old boy who suddenly began to display symptoms of OCD (obsessive-compulsive disorder). He had been a pretty happy-go-lucky little kid up until then. Previously, at nap time he would jump onto his mat, giggle, and go to sleep. But something changed, and at nap time, he would repeatedly smooth out his sheet and blanket, and he couldn’t begin to nap unless everything was perfect. He started worrying excessively about things on his plate at lunchtime. His cup had to go in a certain place, and his fork had to be placed just so. We talked to his mom and dad, asking if anything was out of the ordinary. No, they said, everything was fine at home.
One weekend the boy’s mom asked one of my teachers to baby-sit. When Miss Sue arrived at the home, she found all the dishes, pots, pans, and silverware dirty and stacked high in the kitchen. Takeout containers were strewn across the floor. The trash can was overflowing. We found out that Mom was mad because Dad wouldn’t help at home. Dad was upset with Mom’s nagging, so he quit doing anything around the home. Mom quit cooking and cleaning. Fighting between the parents was often and loud.
This child was caught in the adults’ quagmire of selfishness. He began to try to order his world the only way he knew how—by keeping his things straightened up. The counselor we hired for our program explained that this little guy became obsessive about it to the point that he did develop OCD, all of it driven by disorder, stress, and his parents arguing all the time. By the way, the parents later divorced.
Disorganization on the Outside Causes Disorganization on the Inside
Some kids have frenzied or out-of-control behaviors. They may run around, jump over things, and leave their possessions strewn everywhere. Many of the children who act like this may have brains that stay in a constant state of confusion. Kids who act like this need an organized environment. You might say disorganization on the outside brings disorganization in their brains.
We proved this in our early childhood program and our after-school program. We kept an orderly environment with everything labeled and organized. There were no messes piled up in the corners. Games, arts and crafts, and science projects were neatly displayed on shelves.
At one point, more than 85 percent of our enrollment had been diagnosed with behavioral disorders; had been neglected, abused, or sexually molested; or were in foster care. Our kids needed to feel peace and comfort in our facility. “For God is not a God of disorder but of peace” (1 Corinthians 14:33).
Because of our success at accommodating out-of-control children and children with diagnosed behavior disorders, our program became part of a research program at Portland State University called Models of Inclusion in Child Care.4 We were one of only ten programs in the United States to which they sent a research team. Amazingly, the research team could not pick out the kids with ADHD, RAD (Reactive Attachment Disorder), or ODD (Oppositional Defiant Disorder), etc.
The reason the researchers couldn’t pick out these various children was the order we maintained in our facility. It was imperative for us to have an organized, clutter-free environment to bring calmness, a feeling of safety, and a reduction in anxiety. Our kids were calm. They knew where things were and where to put things back. This brought a feeling of pride and accomplishment because they were successful in helping maintain order. They felt safe because the staff members were calm and had things under control. Everything, on most days, ran like clockwork.
When homes are organized, kids can feel more at peace. Being at peace means less sibling fighting. Of course, being organized doesn’t mean that all sibling arguing and fighting goes away—kids are kids—but it can limit the anxiety some feel, and that leads to calmer kids.
As a parent, it is important to take charge of your home and put it in order. Get your kids on a good schedule, recognizing that schedules change as kids get older.
We’ve already discussed kids contributing to the home, but I want to emphasize it again here. Kids need to keep their spaces organized and relatively clean.
They need an organized home so they can keep track of their homework and their belongings for school. They need an organized home so that when it’s time to do one of those special school projects, Mom or Dad doesn’t have to go out late at night to purchase tape and other supplies.
“When a country is rebellious, it has many rulers, but a ruler with discernment and knowledge maintains order” (Proverbs 28:2 NIV). Your children are your people. Your home is your country, and it’s up to you as the parent to maintain order. It’s also up to you to model faith in your home, which leads us back to the widow and Elijah.
Wavering Faith
If you are like me, you have had times where your faith wavered. You wanted to believe. You wanted things to work out. But because we are human, we get impatient. The widow in our story had a wavering faith, but again in God’s timing, Elijah came through, and when he did he brought glory to God. We’ve read this part of the story in a previous chapter, but let’s take another look.
Some time later the son of the woman who owned the house became ill. He grew worse and worse, and finally stopped breathing. She said to Elijah, “What do you have against me, man of God? Did you come to remind me of my sin and kill my son?”
“Give me your son,” Elijah replied. He took him from her arms, carried him to the upper room where he was staying, and laid him on his bed. Then he cried out to the Lord, “O Lord my God, have you brought tragedy also upon this widow I am staying with, by causing her son to die?” Then he stretched himself out on the boy three times and cried to the Lord, “O Lord my God, let this boy’s life return to him!”
The Lord heard Elijah’s cry, and the boy’s life returned to him, and he lived. Elijah picked up the child and carried him down from the room into the house. He gave him to his mother and said, “Look, your son is alive!”
Then the woman said to Elijah, “Now I know that you are a man of God and that the word of the Lord from your mouth is the truth.”
1 Kings 17:17–24
The widow’s faith, like that of many single parents, seems to have wavered in this crisis. When her son became ill and died, she thought it was because of her sin.
Some Bible scholars believe the woman might have thought Elijah’s presence in her house had brought God’s attention to her sin and that the death of her son was a divine punishment. She must have questioned why God, who had provided for and sustained the life of her son before, was now allowing him to die.
This is the first occurrence of someone being raised from the dead in Scripture. This widow, who was not one of God’s chosen people, experienced a miracle. With this experience the widow knew for sure that Elijah was a man of God, and she now knew that the word of the Lord that Elijah preached was the truth.
Here is an important fact to note: This woman, who had not experienced all the miracles the Hebrew people experienced in the wilderness, had accepted Elijah and his God. God used this experience of her son being healed and her faith in the man of God to convince this widow that God is real and reliable.
In our world today, we don’t have to go to prophets to ask for help. When Christ came to earth and was crucified, He left the Holy Spirit to intercede for us. We have the ability to pray to the Father through His Son, Jesus Christ. When we don’t know what to pray, we can rest assured that the Holy Spirit knows and intercedes for us.
“In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express” (Romans 8:26).
So many times, single parents dwell on the why of a situation. The why questions can hold us back. Instead of asking why, ask what.
The what questions reframe our mind-set and put the responsibility on us, not someone else. It is a huge step for many people, but trust me—it will help you to move forward.
Keep in mind, God’s timing is always perfect. Trust and believe in Him no matter what you are experiencing in your life and with your children.
In a crisis, it is important to remember that God has an order for how He is going to bring things about. If we try to take over and usurp God and His order, we can make the situation worse. Sometimes we have to wait on the Lord. No matter how much we might want God to come roaring through with mighty miracles, it rarely happens like that. God wants us to wait and trust Him. And many times, it’s not for our benefit as parents but for our kids’ benefit.
Sarah Does It Right
Our friend Sarah is doing so well. She celebrates every holiday with her kids. She and her kids decorate the house and the yard, and in the summer they plant a garden. Her kids help her cook and do chores. She and her best friend have taken the kids to Disney World more than once, and the two moms make T-shirts for each Disney day and plan way in advance what they are going to do there. She is an excellent fourth-grade teacher and gets all kinds of accolades from parents and the school staff. Was it hard for her to wait on God’s timing? Yes, and there will be other hard times as her kids grow when she will have to wait on God’s timing. But like the rest of us, she will do it because she loves the Lord that much.
GOING DEEPER