The Labor Room

 Most hospitals have labor rooms. When you first walk into them, it seems like a normal hospital room. When the labor pains intensify signaling the coming of a new baby, that labor room transforms into specialized space for delivering new borns. 

Four times I went into labor rooms with Brenda. She had to have four c-sections, which meant we never really used our labor room until after our sons were born. What special days they were. It is hard to imagine that Brenda and I even considered not having children because we were so busy in our careers. Now I cannot imagine life without Jennifer, Brenda's youngest sister who came to live with us in her teen years, Taylor, Tanner, Tucker and Turner. They have brought indescribable joy to my life. My quiver is full. 

Those are great memories for me but, it is not the point of this article. I have a far different labor room in mind. One located in the Spring Creek facilities. You would probably miss it if you came to visit for the first time. It is shut up behind an unassuming door that blends in with rest of the decor. Behind that door is a labor room. A place where miracles are conceived and given birth. 

It is our prayer room. I just left there a few moments ago. I went in with the labor pains of four burdens. Four little seeds of faith deep in my spirit. Four prayer requests that I trust God will turn into full blown new born miracles in His timing. 

Just like there is a time for a mother to carry a child in the womb, so there is a time we must carry burdens in our spirit until the appointed day of birth comes. Until then, we labor in prayer. We travail underneath the spiritual labor pains. We wrestle and push to watch God do supernatural things. 

The labor room should be one of the most important rooms in our houses of worship. Sadly, many places don't have a prayer room. Partly, because there is not enough space in old wood frame country sanctuaries. Tragically, because it is not always important to congregations with adequate space for such a room. 

I stumbled on our preyer room by accident. The sign on the door labeled it as a prayer room. I had never noticed it. The contents of that room spoke a different story. It had become a junk room, a room for committee meetings, but not a prayer room. We changed that. Four members worked tirelessly to transform the space. They painted. They decorated. The added prayer benches, two love seats, inspirational paintings and quotes, and a place for jotting down prayer requests. It is a space exclusively dedicated to prayer. I have spent much time there during the past year. Each Sunday morning I gather with whoever chooses to attend our Pastor's Prayer Partners meeting before our Sunday morning worship service. 

Over the coming years, I expect many miracles will be born in that room. I wait eagerly to give God glory and testify about the four miracles I travailed to bring to life today. They are unseen to the human eye, but I feel each of them deep in my spirit. I feel them rumbling and kicking inside me reminding they are nearing the day of completion. 

I urge you to visit your own labor room. A designated place for prayer. A place to fight faith battles. A place to transform the assurance of things hoped for  and to give birth to the evidence of things not seen. [Hebrews 11:1]