The Night Shift at Station 7

Captain Maria Santos has worked the fire station on Ridge Road in Asheville, North Carolina, for twenty-two years. She once told a reporter something that stuck with the whole department: "People sleep because we don't."

Every night, while families tuck children into bed and lock their doors, Station 7 stays awake. The lights stay on. The trucks stay ready. Someone is always watching the monitors, always listening for the call. The families on Ridge Road don't lie awake wondering if the station is staffed. They don't check the schedule. They simply rest, trusting that someone who knows what they're doing is keeping watch through the dark hours.

That's the heartbeat of Psalm 121. The psalmist lifts his eyes to the hills and asks the question every honest soul asks in hard seasons: "Where does my help come from?" And the answer arrives not as a theology lecture but as a promise about a Person. The Lord who watches over you will not slumber. He who keeps Israel neither slumbers nor sleeps.

Not occasionally awake. Not mostly attentive. The Almighty keeps a permanent night shift over your life. The sun will not harm you by day, nor the moon by night. He guards your coming and going, now and forevermore.

Maria Santos eventually retires. Station 7 will someday rotate new crews. But the One who watches over you has no shift change, no retirement, no replacement. He is simply, endlessly, awake.