Night work

What seems like ages ago, I used to work a night shift of milking.  This was when we were milking 24/7 (milking 24/7 is not normal for a herd our size, but the reason we did it is a long story that I don't know if I will ever tell on my blog.  Too complicated and probably wouldn't be that interesting to read.)

Sometimes, especially on nights like tonight, when I take a walk after dark around the barns in this beautiful weather, I miss those late night milkings.  

I would turn on the worship music and sing as loud as I wanted because no one else was around except the cows, and they really don't care what I sound like when I sing.  It was kind of exhilarating, being up when very few other people were.  Doing something productive and good and seeing how good of a job I could do each time.  And being alone.  That place became my personal worship and prayer room.

Of course, that room no longer exists in our new parlor setup, and I no longer get to milk because I'm taking care of Joshua.  

But I still pull some night shifts of a different kind.  It's hard to feel the same way about these shifts as I felt about milking because they're just so different.  Then, I was caring for 250+ cows, and I could see the progress and outcome of my work very clearly, almost instantly.  Now, I'm caring for 1 little human.  And the progress feels so slow, the amount of work that we've put in feels greater than the "outcome" we've seen so far.  The past 7 months have seemed to crawl by, but at the same time, I'm wondering how my little boy is growing up so fast!

I guess those night shifts were preparing me (a little bit, nothing can ever really prepare you for having a baby) for now, as a reminder that the work I'm doing is still exhilarating.  I'm raising another human being, for crying out loud!!  It's been the most crazy, and scary, and wow-I'm-gonna-need-so-much-jesus-and-coffee-to-make-it-through-this, and hard, and wouldn't-trade-it-for-the-world challenges.