To Pull Down

On April 14th of this year, our whole Labor & Delivery unit, along with the Nursery moved from the location it has been since it was built thirty years ago.  For thirteen months contractors will be creating for us a brand new, combined unit.

Progress with this renovation has been very slow up to this month.  Workers have been meticulously removing anything that can be used later somewhere else.  I have visited our old unit every week and the changes have been few and far between.  Until last week.

I had a few minutes and walked around to the old unit.  The main double doors, which were always locked when we occupied the space, were open.  I didn't even have to step across the threshold to see the changes.

My view from our unit's doors.

What had once been two hallways with rows of birthing rooms was now a pile of rubble and a tangle of wires and pipes.  I have to admit, it brought tears to my eyes to see the unit I have loved for the past twenty-two years so destroyed.  (If you look on the right side of the picture, however, you can see my desk still sitting where was the day I left.)

The view from our kitchen to our operating rooms.

It would have been impossible for the workers to create a new space for us without first taking away the old.  As the days, weeks and months pass we will begin to see our shiny new unit emerge from the rubble.

We see this truth in the Bible, as well in the instructions the Lord gave the Prophet Jeremiah:

"See, I have this day set thee over the nations and over the kingdoms, 

to root out, and to pull down, and to destroy, and to throw down, 

to build, and to plant."  

Jeremiah 1:10

Jeremiah was instructed to do six things, four were of a destructive nature and two were of a constructive nature.  The old and the wrong had to be pulled down before the new and the better could be built.

Many times in our own lives the Lord must first root out, pull down, destroy and throw down before He can build and plant.  Perhaps we have wrong plans or intentions, misconceptions or beliefs.  As my husband said yesterday, first we must "unlearn" the wrong we have picked up before we can learn the Lord's truth.

The pulling down process is often hard for us. . . it brings tears to our eyes.  But when we see the Lord begin to create the new, the right, the perfect in us, well, that brings tears to our eyes as well.  Tears of joy, tears of thanksgiving, tears of awe for His infinite understanding.

None of us enjoy the pulling down stages in our lives, but we can know that His pulling down has the accuracy of a surgeon's scalpel, that nothing we truly need will be removed.  There is great comfort in this knowledge and as we walk by faith with Him through our renovation, we can take great comfort that He is conforming us to the image of "His dear Son."

"And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to His purpose.  For whom He did foreknow, He also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren.  Moreover whom He did predestinate, them He also called: and whom He called, them He also justified: and whom He justified, them He also glorified. 

What  shall we say then to these things?  If God be for us, who can be against us?"  Romans 8:28-31