End Hunger Fast

I wake today in to the End Hunger Fast national day of fasting and I join thousands of others who want to end hunger in the UK.

I have to say that I am nervous. I know I will feel weak at times and I don't want to fail, I don't want to give in to the temptation to quickly cram my face with whatever I can find. What strikes me most about my nerves though is that I have the option to be nervous. Nervous instead of stressed. Nervous instead of being at my whits end. Nervous instead of hungry. 

Where I feel nervous that I will fail, there are those without the option to fail, those who are stressed about feeding their kids let alone themselves. At their whits end about getting through another day at work without food and without the option to cram their face with anything when hunger kicks in. 

My MP told me the other day that it is hard to find real poverty in Penrith. I was very Chrisitian and held back from saying what I wanted to say. At that point I was very un-Chrisitian because I didn't say anything to put him right. I held back to find facts and stories with which to challenge him later. Stories of the people who today are not choosing to go hungry yet will be, stories of the people who, at the end of this day, can't break their hunger fast, the people for whom the hunger is likely to break them. 

At the start of today I am nervous, but I'm not hungry.