Stay Lit

Last night, I worked my last shift as a graveyard CNA for adults with physical and intellectual disabilities. Seven months has never felt longer. This shift (10pm-6am, Tuesday-Saturday) was grueling. When I first took the job, I was expecting to be leaving Idaho Falls in November. Which means that I would only have to be a nocturnal vampire for four-ish months. Not too bad, right? But as things changed, it became clear that I would be around for a good while longer. In December, I switched to better schedule, working graves Sunday-Thursday, which allowed me to participate in a lot more weekend things (like church!). But graves are graves, no matter what days you work.

How did I get through it? How did I manage to ignore my body's natural desire to live like a normal human being? I have no idea. I might have being saying "It's just an adjustment, you get used to it" so many times to people that I actually started believing it.

And may I just say, I have never missed the sun so much. The last couple of weeks, as sun has been coming out earlier and earlier, it has physically hurt me to look at the beautiful light outside and know that I have to go to bed for the next 6+ hours. Day after day, for the last seven months, I have had to choose between sleep and sun. My heart aches for sunshine, I never thought that I would wish so badly that I was sunburned. But, living where my "day" was only light for about 2-4 hours had more of an affect on me than I really realized. When I got home today, with a long list of packing chores to do down in my room (located in the basement), I honestly couldn't bring myself to go downstairs one more day.

So here I am, chilling on my roommates' bed, with every single curtain drawn and all the blinds pulled up in the whole house. I am so happy to be rejoining the land of the living!

As humans, we crave light. As much as my job was valuable and someone has to do it, if I can help it, I will never work overnights again. God gave us this amazing inner desire to be in the presence of light, both physical and spiritual. Living my life during the night gave me a lot of opportunities for alone time and the chance to really focus on any projects I needed to get done. But "alone time" get lonely reeeeaaaallll fast. Not only were we made for light, but we were made for fellowship, too. I think that this job has really helped me appreciate the simplistic joy and peace that comes with the day.

God is so good. As much as I obviously didn't particularly enjoy graveyards, He was with me every single shift, every single day.

Another thing I learned from this job is the unreal peace and silence that comes at about

2-4am. Generally, there are two people working graves, but several time we were understaffed and I had to work the shift alone. I learned to fill the time with worship music, John Piper sermons, good movies, and out loud prayers. I had to learn how to appreciate the stillness or fill it with something more meaningful than my own thoughts. It's a skill that appears to be pretty uncommon nowadays. Our society is overflowing with stimulus, entertainment, and constant activity. It takes intention to just be still. Working in the dead of night taught me to be patient and grateful for silence.

To sum up: the graveyard shift is cool, but not that cool. There are lessons to be learned in the middle of night, but they probably don't take seven months to find. I have learned a lot from this job, but I am happy to put it behind me. For now, I'm just going to soak up some sun and spend as much time with my people as I can :)

Psalm 46:10

"He says, "Be still and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth.”"