Making a New Thing

I was so tempted this last week to clean out my flower beds. The sun was shining. The rain had stopped and everything was beginning to bud. But having lived in Indiana my whole life, I knew it was too soon. New growth needs to be protected by the old dead leaves and plants for a time before it is strong enough to survive. I knew the cold would come again before spring was truly sprung. Today the temperatures are in the teens and snow has been falling off and on for the past 2 days. Indiana weather is predictably unpredictable. I’m so glad that I waited.

But when is the right time to pull off the old so that new growth can be revealed? This is the eternal question asked over many facets of life. Is it the right time to leave the old to start something new? Often old and new must co-habit together for a period.The new is protected like the old leaves protecting the tender spring plants. But at some point, the old must be thrown off or it begins to inhibit the new growth rather than protect it. What is hidden is choked off, never revealed, because the old didn’t allow it. Old ways can hide new opportunities. They can consume us, making change impossible.

After much prayer and pondering, I chose to throw off the old to begin something new. I started working at Raphael Health Center in downtown Indianapolis in early February. It is risky business leaving a sure thing for the unknown. But I felt the Lord moving me forward. My time with IU Health was done. I had accomplished the thing I had set out to do. The Wayne and Washington Township clinics are thriving and ready to move up to higher levels with new providers. They have grown so much that it was impossible for me to manage both of them any longer. This provided a good time for me to leave. It’s always difficult, however, to leave the people in a place more than the place itself. I miss my co-workers and the friends I made along the way. My heart is still with them and my hope is to continue those friendships on a different level now.

God was calling me to Raphael Health Center. I have circled around it for years, doing mission work in the city as a volunteer but not really settling in to living my career as a mission. There is a big difference. Now that I am here, I am fully appreciating this. I have never worked long-term with such a challenging population. Their needs are great and their resources are few. Raphael is a beacon of light in their hopelessness. I may be there to provide healthcare but I could see immediately that my main purpose was to give hope. Where there is no hope, there is no healing. One must proceed the other.

If those of us at Raphael can keep our focus on being the light in this present darkness, then much can be accomplished. We do have resources to make a difference as a Federally Qualified Health Center. But it is easy to become overwhelmed by the vastness of the challenge. Help is offered but it is often not embraced for many reasons: lack of knowledge, transportation issues, cultural and language barriers, addictions, joblessness, disabilities. The list of roadblocks to healthier living is endless. Steadily, slowly, we are changing the neighborhood, one person at a time. In the process, we are being changed into image bearers.  We bear the hope and healing given by the Great Physician.

I can see now that the Lord has been molding me for this work for years but I have resisted. He has and is in the process of making me into the person He created me to be. But the old must be thrown off like dead leaves in a spring garden so the new may burst forth.

“See, I am making a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?  I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland.”  Isaiah 43:19