Trusting God's Timing When Your Dream Falls Apart

Trusting God’s timing is easy when life makes sense. It’s much harder when dreams fall apart, doors close without explanation, and hope feels deferred.

I got fired.

Yes. Me.

Former perfectionist turned excellence-seeker, the do-it-right-the-first-time, full-throttle, detail-pained, worker woman, who had placed all her hopes in this great endeavor!

Landing the job was a dream come true, so why wouldn’t I?

As a newbie book writer, I knew the traditional publishing process would be tough and would take a long time.

The aspiring me determined to do it anyway and with grace.

After about a year of due diligence, a literary agent signed me, hurdle #1, and oh, what a triumph! Having pocketed a prestigious literary agency to push me to publishers, I pressed on with their instructions for the next leg.

Followed all the guidelines, met all the deadlines, even spent a secluded week away to get the writing just right.

Then, I waited.

And waited.

During that time, a different opportunity presented itself.

I met a slew of other authors who were swinging to a different publishing dance.

I may have had a little temper tantrum. Okay, maybe not so little. I got myself before God and asked him what to do. And he clearly told me to stay the course. That was January.

Almost another year went by.

Proverbs 13:12 says, “Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a dream fulfilled is a tree of life” (NLT).

My heart certainly felt sick. My agent didn’t communicate with me as often as I’d hoped, nor did she respond to my attempts to reach her.

God had told me to stay the course, so I settled to wait on Him.

Nothing happened.

Until that day. The day her boss said my agent had left the agency, so he was “releasing me” from our contract.

I got fired.

That’s how it felt.

I wasn’t good enough for him to assign me another agent.

My writing wasn’t bold or bright enough for him to take on my project.

So, he let me go. I tried to put it out of my mind, after a good cry.

Christmas was getting close, and it was always my job to set up our little handmade nativity scene that my father had given me. It was special to the two of us. Growing up, I was the one to set it up for him on top of our baby grand piano.

Now as an adult, it made me feel close to him again as I unwrapped each fragile piece, carefully placing them, missing him, as I have the last 10 years. I took the baby Jesus and hid it on the shelf below the stable so I could pull it out on Christmas morning, like always.

As I did it, I remembered when my Dad had once been “let go.”

Only 11 years old, to me it sounded like he got fired, too. He lost his teaching job due to budget cuts, but he never went back to teaching.

He eventually found a new passion and employment with the Boy Scouts of America, still affecting so many young lives and being the leader he was meant to be.

His life wasn’t over. It just went in a different direction that still fulfilled his God-given purpose.

That January, God had given me a word, “Hope,” to focus my soul on all year.

I often reminded myself of a favorite quote by Brennan Manning, which I first read in college, that felt very appropriate: “Hope knows that if great trials are avoided, great deeds remain undone, and the possibility of growth into greatness of soul is aborted.”

I knew I couldn’t just skip over this devastating loss of my three years of hard work; I had to accept the emotions that came with it so that I could move on. I knew my “greatness of soul” was still out there.

Then I remembered that avenue other author friends had taken to publish their books through a new hybrid publisher.

After researching and talking to the recruiter, I asked God again; this time, he answered with a smile, a wink. The publisher’s name was hope*books.

I signed a new contract that morning. I planned to borrow a little money to cover about half the cost of publishing.

Two hours later, I got a surprise refund check in the mail that covered the entire amount.

All that waiting, trusting, hoping, knowing – God was in control.

He wasn’t surprised by the turn of events. He had every hour, every minute planned out. My story was never over. My passion and my purpose were still intact.

I used to have post-it notes all over my computer screen, but earlier that year, I took them down, save one:

“His wisdom is sublime, His heart profoundly kind; God never is before His time, and never is behind.” (J.J. Lynch, “Say Not, My Soul”)

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