I am assuming most of my readers have not worked the midnight shift at the Amazon warehouse.  Allow me the pleasure of walking you through a typical day for me.

11:55 pm: Roll out of bed.  Make coffee.  Quick breakfast.  You might call it a midnight snack.  Off to my chair for a little quiet time on YouVersion.  Out the door a little after 1:00 am.

1:20 am: Clock in.  Take the long walk to the center of the warehouse to find out where the managers have put me for the day.  I could be diverting packages.  Might be a water spider on the dock.  Or I could be stowing.  Yep, stowing today.  Oh joy!

1:25 am: Scanner in hand, I start opening all the bins around me.  Beep-Beep!  Beep-Beep!  Up and down, all around.  Down one aisle and on to the next.  Out of the corner of my eye, I see packages already falling into my hampers.  All sizes from jiffies (envelopes) to shoebox size boxes to oversized boxes marked “HEAVY” that thud into your bin like a ton of bricks.

1:30 am: I finish scanning all the bins only to hear the most annoying noise ever.  More beeping, but deeper and louder than the pretty beeps my scanner creates.  BEEEEP!  BEEEEP!  It grates on my nerves like sandpaper, and I know what it means: my hampers are already full.

1:35 am: I snag a stow cart and hightail it down the lane to my hampers.  More BEEEEPing.  Not just from my hampers, but from ALL hampers surrounding me.  Annoyed looks are plastered on the faces of my colleagues as they are encountering the same predicament I am. 

1:36 am: I dig through the packages like a kid on Christmas morning, finding the biggest one, an oversized four-foot long 50-pound monster that ends up thudding on my cart like a ton of lead.  I slam it on purpose, a little out of anger, allowing the BOOM to be heard by any manager nearby.  They are all on walking laptop computers, dispersed throughout the warehouse strategically.  I find two more oversized berthas and slam them on top of the other one, making a mad dash down the aisle to scan them and put them in their place.

This was me BEFORE I bought my Amazon approved headphones back in January.  Amazon does not allow your own ear pods to be worn, and if you get caught, you are told kindly to put them away.  Now, I strap those babies on, find a Christian music mix, and allow the music to take me to a different place. 

A place where the beeping is muted.  A place where my feet move to the beat of Toby Mac.  It is my happy place.

“Clint, were you dancing this morning?” my friend Amanda asks.

Yes, Amanda.  Yes, I was.

Christian music is my shield to the devil’s evil schemes.  It soothes my soul and puts a pep in my step.  Even in the wee hours of the morning.  And I already know what is going to happen.  I will get caught up eventually.  My teammates will help me fight the hailstorm of packages piling on top of me.  There are always “float stowers” wandering the warehouse, looking for the frantic faces and loud BEEEEEPing. 

I bet you have those days when your own “packages” are being shot at you like machine gun fire.  Maybe it is an angry parent email followed by a student who forgot to take his meds followed by a frustrating meeting and capped off with a classroom full of kids riding a sugar high after the math teacher decided to have a fun treat day. 

Yeah, we have all been there.  My advice?  Find your own happy place.  You may not be able to wear your headphones the entire time like me, but Christian music can inspire you on your drive to work, during your plan hour, and even during lunch.  You can even play songs during passing periods as your students travel from class to class, reminding your aching soul that there still is hope in Jesus Christ.

Find your happy place this week!

(I just created a playlist on my YouTube channel that I plan on using this coming week.  Click the link below to discover them!  Or have fun creating your own playlist.)