How To Trust God's Timing When It Makes No Sense

What I learned from terrorizing pharmacy employees

Me—with crazy eyes because I’m not getting what I want

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Now, I can see God was working all along.

I’ve shared pieces of my story before. But distance improves my perception. A year later, those lessons aren’t just lessons anymore—they’ve settled deeper, become convictions that time has proven I can trust.

As some of you might know, several years ago, addiction entered our family. Then came Charlotte—our grandbaby with a congenital heart defect and hearing loss—requiring surgeries, specialists, and more appointments than I ever could have imagined.

Around the same time, my husband and I changed careers in our sixties. And then my cancer arrived.

I was fearful and shaken. Through prayer, Scripture, and friends who loved me, God slowly rebuilt my trust in His patience and goodness. But the deepest change came when He moved in such an obvious way I couldn’t possibly miss it.

The Miracle I Almost Canceled

Charlotte’s heart surgery had already been canceled four times. When they canceled it again—this time in pre-op, after we’d already unpacked at our Airbnb, driven to the hospital, and I’d steeled myself for the worst. I broke down and cried.

We went home discouraged and defeated. I was barely speaking to God.

Later that week, we had a routine audiology appointment. I’d meant to cancel it—Charlotte would have still been recovering in the hospital if the surgery had happened. Since we were in town, I pulled myself together and took Charlotte to her appointment.

At the last minute, the audiologist decided to run a full hearing test instead of the routine test and hearing aid adjustment. She ran it twice. Then she called in her supervisor.

Charlotte’s hearing was normal! Completely normal. No more hearing aids.

The doctors had no explanation. They used words like “spontaneous,” “unusual,” and “we’ve only seen this once before.” But I knew exactly what had happened: God met me right where my faith was faltering and healed Charlotte’s hearing. That miracle became a milestone in my faith —proof that even when I couldn’t see what He was doing, He was still at work.

Why I’m Sharing This Now

Two years before Charlotte’s hearing miracle, I’d started writing about patience. I was trying to convince myself that waiting could be meaningful, that frustration could be transformed into trust. I didn’t really believe it yet, but I was trying.

About a year later, the miracle happened. And now, looking back, I can see how the lesson and the miracle were woven together by God’s perfect timing. He was teaching me while I waited, even when I didn’t realize I was learning.

What follows is adapted from that earlier writing—the pharmacy incident, the Medicaid battle, and what they taught me about my impatience. I wrote this about a year before Charlotte’s hearing was restored, when I was trying to trust God’s timing.

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The Pharmacy Incident (2 years ago)

Todd had just come home from the hospital after rupturing four discs and dislodging an old spinal fracture. The pain was excruciating. He could barely move from the bed to the bathroom.

I rushed to the pharmacy for his medication, but the technician told me the prescriptions wouldn’t be ready until the next day.

The next day.

I wanted to vault the counter. I wanted to demand those pills like a mama bear whose cub was suffering. But I was also aware that God could see me, so I smiled tightly and asked— very calmly—to speak with the pharmacist.

My kids say I’m scariest when I smile quietly.

The pharmacist refused to come over. But within minutes, he’d “discovered” that he could fill the prescriptions in about half an hour.

When I returned two weeks later, the technician remembered me immediately. “Asaad, right?” Apparently, I’d made an impression.

Later, driving home, I realized I hadn’t actually done anything wrong. It was reasonable to expect the prescriptions to be ready. It was okay to advocate for my husband. But I’d been barely in control, teetering on the edge of behavior I didn’t like in myself. That same desperation came out in the hospital whenever I thought Todd wasn’t getting care fast enough.

Happy While You Wait

When our kids were little, we taught them that patience meant being “happy while you wait.” They’d groan when we said it, but it worked. It gave them something to do while time passed: be happy, choose joy, and stay content.

I wish that definition still worked for me.

These days, I’m waiting on things that break my heart. Waiting for test results. Waiting for surgery dates that keep getting canceled. Waiting for family members to heal from wounds I can’t fix. I hate waiting—and yet, that’s exactly where God keeps meeting me, keeps shaping me.

Adult patience isn’t about being happy. It’s about trusting God’s timing even when His timing makes no sense. I want to trust Him—until I don’t. And when I can’t muster the trust, I ask Him for the desire to trust again.

God can work with that. He’s proven it over and over.

The Rooster Moment

I’d planned to finish this post with an uplifting paragraph about gratitude. Instead, I spent two hours and forty-three minutes on hold with a government agency about Charlotte’s Medicaid plan. They told me only Charlotte could make the needed changes to her policy. Charlotte was two years old.

I’d already sent forty-six pages of documentation. I’d used their online chat until the website crashed. And still, nothing.

At one point, while sitting on hold and listening to a cheerful recorded voice assure me that my call was important, I seriously considered calling back in a high, squeaky voice and saying, “Hi, this is Charlotte, and these are the changes that I need.”

After being transferred five times—each time having to explain the situation from scratch—I lost my temper. I screeched something unkind and hung up.

And I thought I heard a rooster crow three times.

The Real Lesson

That night, I decided I wasn’t qualified to write about patience. Who was I kidding? I’d terrorized a pharmacy technician and snapped at a Medicaid worker who was just doing her job.

Then I remembered what friends once told me during a particularly hard week: Be patient with yourself.

That is the real lesson. My weaknesses keep reminding me how much I need God’s grace. The problems aren’t all solved—Todd still has pain, Charlotte still has appointments, and the Medicaid paperwork is still overwhelming. But I’m learning to rest in His timing.

I’m also promising not to terrorize any more pharmacy employees.

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Present Day

Now, two years after writing that post—after Charlotte’s hearing miracle, after countless frustrating phone calls and long waits—I can see what I couldn’t then.

Every delay was part of God’s timing. Every canceled surgery and hour on hold. What once felt like chaos now looks like choreography. If Charlotte’s surgery hadn’t been canceled that fifth time, we wouldn’t have been at the audiology appointment. And I wouldn’t have witnessed God’s timing and plan for the most skilled pediatric heart surgeon to reconstruct her heart. Her case was so complicated that less than a handful of surgeons throughout the world could have performed that surgery.

The patience I begged for wasn’t about waiting quietly. It was about trusting that even when nothing seemed to be happening, God was working in ways I couldn’t see.

And I needed to live through it—all of it—to see it.

💬 What about you? Has there been a time when delays made you furious—only for you to look back later and see God’s hand in the timing? I’d love to hear your story in the comments. And who knows? Your comment might be exactly what someone else needs to read.