How use timer to delay in a function?

A delay function is defined normally as:

void delay(int n)
{
   int i;
   for (i= 0; i<n; i++)
   _nop_();
}

when delay() performed,ALU get in loop but do nothing.Can use a timer counting to delay and release ALU to do something ?For example ,after input commands to erase I28F128 flash,enable timer0 to counting and program go do something else,when counting to 5's(flash is erased ),program go back and begin to write data to flash.

Best regards