No Sunrise Without the Alarm Clock. . .

I am not a morning person by nature. For the first twenty years of my career I worked night shift and loved it. My body is still on a night-shift clock. But in 1997, I took a day-shift position and since that time I have been forcing myself out of bed early in the morning to go to work.

Now, my husband is a cheerful, chipper, early morning riser. Not me. He has learned through the years to wake me gently, preferably with a cup of hot coffee waiting. I move slowly through the paces of getting ready, my body, and often my mind, being tempted to resent each step along the way. Once I heard my husband joke to someone else that my heart "doesn't start beating until 9am!"

I was thinking about this morning as we were on the way to the hospital. It was a particularly brutal morning. I had not slept well and I did not want to get out of bed at 5am. For that matter, I didn't want to get out of bed at 6am or 7am either. But, here I was at half past six in the morning, pulling up next to the hospital. Then, as is often the case in the morning, I looked to the east and saw the most beautiful sky. The sunrise was painting the sky a gorgeous combination of pink and blue -- quite fitting for a Labor & Delivery nurse heading in to work. I took a second to pop over to the hospital's heliport and snap a picture.

You see, a great many of the beautiful sunrise pictures I have taken over the last few years have been taken from that very spot early in the morning before I walk into the hospital. Pictured here is one of my all time favorites, taken one morning before work.

Had I not been working day-shift and not been going in to work, I would have never seen that sunrise to have even had the thought about pulling out my camera.

My thought about this is that when I am tempted to think how much I hate going to work in the mornings, I need to remind myself that "as for God, His way is perfect." (2 Samuel 22:31) I may think I know what may be best for me, or even perfect for me, but it is God who knows what is best and His way is always perfect for me.