A Place at the Table, Day 2

I don't know why it is, but day 2 of a fast has always been more difficult for me than the first.  Our community found that to be true yesterday.  One of our friends who gave up candy had to remove a candy bowl from her classroom.  I walked out of my lunch appointment (baked potato at McAlister's . . . again) and was already hungry.  Another friend ate dinner at 5 and was ready for second dinner at 6.  Like he's a hobbit or something.  Still another friend was almost cursing her co-workers for how much they were eating in front of her.

But as some of us reflected on our feelings, we were struck by how good we have it.  If we don't like what the dinner plan is, we can find something else in the pantry.  If we don't like the fast-food joint of choice, we can go to another place, usually next door.

The girl that we met in our reading on day 2 (A Place at the Table, by Chris Seay) is from a family of six children in Haiti.  Some days they don't have enough food for all of the kids to eat.  Are you serious?  When was the last time I didn't have enough food to eat?  Never?  And as a parent, how do you decide which kids eat and which kids don't?  How broken is this world that we live in that some parents have to choose which kids get to eat and which don't while other parents stock their cabinets with enough food to help make their child obese?  God, bring your kingdom! Please!

So how do we bring kingdom in the midst of this level of brokenness?  It starts by a realization of how blessed we are.  Every day I have enough food on my table to feed my family and then some.  I have a job that allows me to not have to worry that my kids will have to go without.  My daily choices are nearly endless -- meats and potatoes, fruits and veggies, starches and grains.  I have more variety in which type of cheese I choose at the grocery store than most people have types of food that they get in a lifetime.

But the blessings of life become curses when we fail to realize that they come with responsibility.  My hope for myself and my community is that during this season of Lent we will be shown how we as a blessed people can bring blessing to the people that we know and people that we will never meet.  If ONLY this happens, it will be worth all of the hunger pangs that we will feel these 40 days.