To Sleep Or Not To Sleep

Many of you know that I do a lot of night shifts with my job. It has taken me quite a while to get used to doing them, and to think of it, I am not sure that you ever get truly used to them. As a kid I was always in bed early. I guess I just really needed my full 8 to 10 hours of sleep per night. It really sort of sucked at all night events such as slumber parties because it would be an angonizing thing to have to stay up and party with the rest of the night owls. You know...the ones that stayed up passed 9 pm. I would try my best to stay awake as long as I possibly could because I knew from past experience that bad things happened to the first one asleep. Hopefully we would be doing something that required movement, preferably outside, because if it was something like lying on the floor and deeply involved in girl-talk...I was definatly hooped. My eyelids would get heavy and it would be near impossible to hold my head up as the familiar head bob would begin.
I haven't really changed much over the years. Still like to be in bed by 10 pm. And so...I am sure you can see the dilema. This is an impossibility for someone that works nightshift. My shift begins at 7 pm. It is usually quite busy until about 11pm but then things slow down considerably. I will have a couple hours of paperwork to complete before the morning arrives. This can be a brutal task to complete when all you really want is to shut your eyes. Then there is the really quiet time from 2:30 til 4:30. Some nights we are kept busy with ringing bells but some nights it can be excrutiatingly slow. Usually by 3 am I would do just about anything to laydown on some horizontal surface, although this is not a good idea because I very easily fall into a very deep, very hard to wake up sleep. If I am lucky I will get to sit in one of the easychairs and catnap until it is time to get people washed up for the day. By the time 7 am rolls around I am fanticizing about my nice warm, feather filled bed. When I arrive home I am deliriously happy to fall into my bed and float off to a peaceful slumber... Only to have to get up later that afternoon to prepare to go through the whole torturous process again.

The problem is that it all messes up your sleep patterns and what used to be bedtime is now daytime and vice-versa. It has really threatened to interfere with the social life(don't get too excited...I don't really have one) and nightshifts I have found are not condusive to having kids at home during the day, such as weekends. So most of the time when I get home on Sunday morning I will shower and change and pack the kids in the van and get off to church in time for Sunday School. (By the way I am so thankful for the coffee at church) Then we will stay for the service and drive back home and then think something for dinner, entertain company (hopefully play poker) and maybe watch a movie. (usually I will fall asleep on the couch while everyone else watches movie) All the time thinking that if I slow down too much then the game is over. I will finally allow myself to fall into bed in the evening after being awake for 30 hrs and fall hard and fast asleep. This morning I knew that I had really fallen deep cause when I woke up I was in the same positon that I went to sleep in...I was also regretting not going straight to bed when I got home after the shift and just bypassing the social life.

Psalm 139

Psalm 139

¹
O LORD, you have examined my heart
and know everything about me. (but Lord there are things I don't want you to know about because I am ashamed of my thoughts at times)

²
You know when I sit down or stand up.
You know my every thought when far away.

³
You chart the path ahead of me (so you really know about this path I am on?!!)
and tell me where to stop and rest.
Every moment you know where I am. (I don't know where I am half the time)

⁴
You know what I am going to say
even before I say it, LORD. (I mess up so often with my words, my foot is in there so much)

⁵
You both precede and follow me.
You place your hand of blessing on my head.

⁶
Such knowledge is too wonderful for me,
too great for me to know!( I can't even come close to understanding)

⁷
I can never escape from your spirit!( and yet sometimes I wonder if you are really there?)
I can never get away from your presence!

⁸
If I go up to heaven, you are there;
if I go down to the place of the dead, you are there.

⁹
If I ride the wings of the morning,
if I dwell by the farthest oceans,

¹⁰
even there your hand will guide me, (guide me on this path I am on)
and your strength will support me.(you have carried me many times when I couldn't continue on)

¹¹
I could ask the darkness to hide me
and the light around me to become night--

¹² but even in darkness I cannot hide from you.
To you the night shines as bright as day.
Darkness and light are both alike to you.

¹³
You made all the delicate, inner parts of my body (you made me the way I am on purpose?)
and knit me together in my mother's womb. (really on purpose?)

¹⁴
Thank you for making me so wonderfully complex!( I am a work of art, not a mistake?)
Your workmanship is marvelous--and how well I know it.(not a rough draft or an opps?)

¹⁵
You watched me as I was being formed in utter seclusion,(how amazing you are)
as I was woven together in the dark of the womb.

¹⁶
You saw me before I was born.
Every day of my life was recorded in your book. (you knew the trials I would go through)
Every moment was laid out
before a single day had passed. (you knew it all before I lived it...somehow that is comforting)

¹⁷
How precious are your thoughts about me, O God!
They are innumerable! (even with all my sinfulness??? how can that be)

¹⁸
I can't even count them;
they outnumber the grains of sand!(because you created me and I am your work of art)
And when I wake up in the morning,
you are still with me! (you are always there by my side!)

¹⁹
O God, if only you would destroy the wicked!
Get out of my life, you murderers!

²⁰
They blaspheme you;
your enemies take your name in vain.

²¹
O LORD, shouldn't I hate those who hate you?
Shouldn't I despise those who resist you?

²²
Yes, I hate them with complete hatred,
for your enemies are my enemies.

²³
Search me, O God, and know my heart;
test me and know my thoughts

²⁴
Point out anything in me that offends you,( make me the woman that you designed me to be)
and lead me along the path of everlasting life. (less of me, more of you)

V-Day

I hate Valentine's day! It is yet another day to be disappointed for those of us out there that are single. If there are any of you out there that know what I mean give me a comment or two. Even when I wasn't single my husband rarely brought anything home because he wasn't going to be dictated to by the commercial forces out there to buy a valentine's gift for his wife. Like a lot of men out there he said it would happen when he felt led to...by the way that was not very often. I heard a commercial on the radio the other day advertising to go and buy your sweetheart a brand new bed for Valentine's day. Now am I the only one out here that feels that is the stupidest Valentine's gift ever. The only redeeming factor about it is that it is yet another reason to eat chocolate..not that I ever needed a reason!

How did I get here?

Do you ever wonder how in the world you got to where you are? I saw a greeting card the other day and it went something along the lines of this. "Life sometimes gives you a ticket to a brand new adventure...Isn't it funny how you sometime have no choice on whether you want to participate, and to top it off you have to pay for the ticket too!" It sort of made me smile because it is a concept that has been rather close to home for me. I too have had to pay for a ticket that I wasn't so keen on paying for and I definatly didn't want to take the adventure that was being forcable offered to me.

Two years ago my life was taken off of the chosen, desired track of adventure. I was living a rather predictable and safe life. (so I thought) No real surprises where planned and I was living life trying to do the best I could until the next planned adventure was to be put into motion. Well the fated day came and my safe and predictable life took a very unsafe and unpredictable turn. When I say unsafe and unpredictable turn I am remind that these are the immediate feelings that I felt inside but in reality the were just the opposite. My not so immediate response is that I may be on a path that I didn't quite anticipate but at least I was not alone.

As for me, I don't neccesarily understand why I had to take the less travelled, undesirable and lonely road. I do know that sometimes that less travelled, undesired and lonely choice can bring you closer to a God that may not have been so familiar. I have learned that I am a very capable woman...or so it may seem. I am not sure how I have gotten to where I am, just know without a doubt that it hasn't been on my own steam. Yes, I have had the motherhood thing driving me, but most of all I have had God walking all he way with me. Walking with me, carrying me and pulling me through some of the hardest time in my life.

Have you ever noticed that hindsight is 20/20. After some time has passed we can usually see things in a much better light then when we saw things as we were living through them. It doesn't always mean that we would still have chosen the road that we had been forced to go down but sometimes we understand things a little more.

That Brings me to the question again...How did I get here? I sure as heck can't tell you but I do know I didn't get here alone!