The Timing Is Perfect
I’ve heard God speak some very specific words. No heavenly, booming voice and not all that often. I cling to those precious gifts. One of them was in December 2010 while I was flying from South Africa to the US for a visit. I remember everything about that very profound sentence. It was jam-packed with promises of a future and a family with Lifa, the 2-year old little boy I had just tearfully said goodbye to for a time that would be much longer than either of us had expected.
My heart leapt. If HE says it, it’s TRUE! As they say in South Africa, “It’s done and dusted!” I built a mountain of (completely logical and faith-based) expectations and could hardly wait for the outworking of them all.
My heart, and often my hope, unraveled for the next 4 years after that word. Upon arrival in the US, I phoned the home Lifa had been living in and found he was gone. Nothing was clear, but I did understand that no one knew where Lifa was. His father (who had not been in the picture at all until now) had come to pick him up for a quick outing. He never came back, leaving all of Lifa’s clothing behind and no point of contact. I agonized from half a world away, dreading the worst: that he had been sold in a child trafficking ring like so many others in the region.
That 5-month season of looking for Lifa did a work on me. Not the pretty, spiritual kind of work. I NASTY cried often. I met anxiety and sleep issues for the first time – and have suffered with sleep problems ever since. I questioned, hated and hurt.
Saying goodbye after visiting Lifa with his father in 2011.
We finally found Lifa, living with his father in a very dangerous home 3 ½ hours from where I lived. I spent the next years making that long drive over and over to build relationship with his father, teaching him about healthy parenting with a local pastor, and bringing Lifa home with me for visits to restore nutrients and find the light in his eyes again.
Every time we left from a visit at his father’s house, I would pull into a gas station, and give my accompanying South African friends/bodyguards/translators money for pizza (it was the fancy kind of gas station with fast food chains). I would go directly to the very un-fancy bathroom and weep in the stall until I ran out of tears. Then we’d all meet back at the car, I put on my sunglasses and we would pretend everything was fine for the next 3 ½ hours.
I couldn’t understand how I’d heard such a clear word regarding Lifa being in my family, yet it felt like I was spending myself, my time and my money on the opposite of what God promised. I spent those long car rides begging God to let me stop making that drive. If I couldn’t have the whole promise, if I couldn’t protect him, just erase me from Lifa’s life. That’s when I heard another clear word from God. “Don’t stop going until I tell you to.”
Scary realities were continuously unveiled in those trips. Even as Lifa started staying with me for longer periods of time, it never started to look like God’s promise was being fulfilled. It always looked like I was driving further from it.
We’re in our 9th year since God spoke now. We are now Lifa’s legal guardians and have been able to register him in the school system. We can protect him and provide for him, and we have his father’s blessing to do so.
Our family journey has felt long, bumpy and left us with some sore spots. I’ve been trying to get a birth certificate for Lifa since 2011. We’ve been trying to work out problems with my South African visa since 2017. We’ve fasted and prayed for an entire year. My prenatal anxiety has gone through the roof as I’m due in 10 weeks and, without my visa clearance, our baby boy cannot be legally registered or protected. After calmly explaining to my lawyer that I’M FREAKING OUT, he had a long, excitable phone call with Chris.
Our lawyer said, “THIS IS PERFECT! The timing is exactly what we’ve needed! It’s urgent now, and we had to get to this point. Our hands were tied until we waited on every other system to fail, and now we have an urgent high court case based primarily on a pregnant woman in distress.” It was actually the most ridiculous set of sentences to celebrate- but we did!
It also got me thinking about that 2010 promise and some of God’s other promises. It’s been a heart-wrenching journey – full of detours, disasters, miracles and blessings. There have been moments when I thought the 2-year visa journey was going to break me, and now I find encouragement and a little steady reminder from God. “The timing is perfect. We had to get you to right here, Kacy, to see the fulfillment. You wouldn’t know me so well if you hadn’t needed me so much. I wouldn’t have so much of your heart and you wouldn’t have given me so much of the soles of your feet”.
Abraham was promised a limitless inheritance through his offspring and then wandered with a barren wife for a lifetime before he saw the first glimpse of its fulfillment. The Israelites were promised freedom, and their 2-week trip took 40 years before they ever set foot on the Promised Land. The timing was perfect for the family promises of God that included freedom and belonging for everyone. It was bigger than Abraham, bigger than the Israelites. Even when they wanted to, they never stopped going because that promise was for you and me too.
I believe a year of fasting and praying for one of the most powerful lawyers in the most powerful city in Africa will not be in vain. I believe the deposits of faith and love into Lifa’s father and the relationship we have maintained between them has eternal value. I know that our God is not slow in keeping His promises. His timing is perfect.
Pray with us for favor in high court this week. Pray my visa problems are resolved and we get rights to apply for a birth certificate for Lifa. We are praying for you that, the next time your soles get sore from your journey, you look up in to the heavens and think, “The timing is perfect.” Don’t stop going until he tells you to stop. You are part of a great Family promise, loved one.