I hate snooze alarms. You know - those ubiquitous plastic buttons designed to be found by a flailing hand driven through the dark by an utterly unconscious mind with the objective being 5 (or 10, or 15, or whatever) minutes more somnolent bliss. Sort of like the monkey who hits the yellow button gets the banana.

I don't like the things. As a matter of fact, I don't care for alarms at all. Waking up is not my favorite moment of the day. I don't exactly hit the floor running. To tell the truth, several times I've missed the floor altogether. Not a pretty sight.

Don't you have to wonder about a society that uses alarms to wreck a perfectly good slumber, then cheats on it with a snooze alarm? Think about it. When we're hungry, we eat. Our bodies give us definite signals. Some people can even tell exactly what kind of food their body needs by analyzing how they feel. Me? I have an infallible sense for chocolate, New York cheesecake and fettucini alfredo. I never miss.

Okay, so when we're sleepy, we sleep. Except that we don't sleep until we're rested. No, we use an ALARM to wake us up. The name ought to tip us off - ALARM. As in scary, frightening, dangerous, and hazardous to your health.

But, getting back to the snooze alarm, I suppose my main objection is they have always worked better for my roommates than for me. In college, my first roommate and I pledged Sigma Alpha Epsilon. Actually, he pledged; I just took the wake-up calls. His snooze alarm never distracted his slumber, but it sent me straight through the ceiling. Likewise, the Woman Thou Gavest Me has a similar device on her clock radio. It cues her to roll over and sleep; it kicks me into aerobic tension. 0 to 90 in .5 seconds.

I hate to admit it, but perhaps grace is a little like that snooze alarm. It wakes the sleeper, but offers a bit more rest to the weary. Maybe if I'd just loosen up, I'd learn to trust that snooze alarm to wake me when I need it. And if I'd loosen up with grace, I'd trust God to do the same.