One Day Until Freedom

It’s Friday evening. Never have I felt the way I have over the past week. With barely any food, I feel very empty. I have always had the ability to plunder the fridge or cupboards for the sustenance I wanted. Without this, there has been a certain lacking within me. And I have perceived that it is not the satisfaction that I desired, but the freedom to satisfy. When my Sunday reprieve comes, however, I feel no fuller. I feel like I have gained nothing. The proportion of craving in my stomach does not decrease, and it leaves me only feeling gorged. And in just a few hours time I am in need again.

At first, not eating did not seem as though it was the solution for this problem. Indeed, it was the opposite. But as I grew closer to the reason I was fasting- experiencing mortality- I found that I no longer longed for the food of the world. I found that my body had accepted the mortality I had forced upon it. The same mortality that Christ felt in the desert and on the cross. I had become one with his suffering.

Then I fell. I took on the flesh once again for the sake of my livelihood. And I tumbled right back into my previous habit of senselessly gorging myself. Guilt and despair along with refreshment flooded my mind. But I lost something. I lost my touch with my own cross. I hope and pray now that I will not stumble again. For the sake of the joy of Easter and your Son’s death, Lord, stay my hand.