Scripture: Isaiah 43:16-21
photo credit: You Choose Your Path via photopin (license)
Everett Lewis, the Executive Director of the Gulf Coast Housing Initiative, recently shared a story about one of our HomePort clients. We’ll call that client ‘John’.
‘John’ has been at HomePort for a while. When he first moved in, he used some of the Mission’s other services, like our food pantry. Lately, though, he hasn’t been around as much. Everett went to check up on him.
Everett asked John why he hadn’t been at the Mission very much.
And John replied, “I find that when I use the Mission, I don’t use my money as well as I would like to.”
John had discovered that, when he chose to rely on our food pantry, he didn’t save money for his own food. When he chose to rely on us to meet his daily needs, he didn’t chose to do the things that would help him on his journey out of poverty. So he made a different choice: he chose to stop using the services he didn’t need, and to start using the money he had to make that journey.
That’s good news. The Mission has walked with John on his journey and now he is beginning to leave the wilderness of poverty. He has a long way to go, but he’s making the right choices.
And it isn’t just the Mission that’s been with him on that journey. God has been there, too.
God has used the Mission – and people just like you – to make a way in the wilderness and make rivers in the desert. God is doing a new thing. God’s doing that new thing through the Mission, through you, and through all of our clients. God is forging a future for everyone who is in need.
At Back Bay Mission, we celebrate when our clients don’t need us anymore. We rejoice when they can stop using our services. We are here to walk with them for a while. And when they’re ready, we’re glad to let them walk on their own path.
God will make a way in the wilderness. Praise be to God!
