Soothing melodic sounds interrupt my zen like sleep.

My eyes open, I curl over and struggle to find the snooze button.  PRESS HERE, to sleep for 8 more minutes…

I just need a little more sleep.  Then I will be ready for the day…

7:06, 7:07, 7:08 then again… smooth melodies ring out.

My mind justifies, ‘Just 8 more minutes…’  Instinctually, I reach out, PRESS HERE, ahhh quiet, peace and rest again.  My mind is quiet, my body is at rest, I am still…

Again, and again my robotic hand that retreats from the reality of time reaches out to PRESS HERE, to snooze, to rest, to ignore.

So I PRESS HERE to hide from the realities of what not yet is today.

The homeless man I see standing on the same corner again…  I PRESS HERE and snooze and escape from reality that the home I go to he does not even dream of, cause all he dreams of is a full stomach.

The single mother who tries to be everything she needs to be; provider, care giver, homemaker.  Who cries herself to sleep every night from the loneliness she feels from sleeping in an empty bed each night.  PRESS HERE says she can make it, life is hard but through hard work and persistence she can make right choices.

So what makes this morning different?

Today I will be AWAKE!

I will engage the full realities of the falleness of man.

I will be AWAKE,

to the creation that groans from abuse of consumption culture.

I will be AWAKE,

to the divisions that liter our families, churches and government.

I will be AWAKE,

to the reality of suffering, death, loneliness and depression.

I WILL BE ALIVE TODAY!

I will not PRESS HERE and sleep in the false notions of peace and quiet, amid non-reality, false truths and convenient excuses.

And that makes today different.

So when the alarm of life goes off around me today, I will choose wake up and engage.

Romans 13:11 And do this, knowing the time, that now it is high time to awake out of sleep; for now our salvation is nearer than when we first believed.