The Year Susan Changed Her Fast

For six years, Susan Albright fasted every Wednesday during Lent. She skipped lunch, drank only water, and spent her break reading devotionals in her car outside the accounting firm in Winston-Salem. She kept a journal of her hunger, offering it up as spiritual discipline.

Then one February, her pastor preached Isaiah 58. "Is this the fast I have chosen?" he read. "Is it not to share your food with the hungry and provide the poor wanderer with shelter?"

That Wednesday, Susan drove past her usual parking spot and pulled into the lot of Second Harvest Food Bank on Shorefair Drive. She spent her lunch hour sorting canned goods. The next week she came back. By April she was there every Wednesday, unloading trucks alongside a retired Marine named Gerald and a teenager doing community service hours.

She still fasted. But now her empty stomach reminded her of the people who did not choose to be hungry. She started bringing coworkers. They started bringing checkbooks.

"I thought fasting was between me and God," Susan told her small group that spring. "Turns out God wanted it to be between me and my neighbor."

The Almighty does not despise our devotion. But He will not let us mistake private discipline for the destination. The fast He chooses loosens chains, shares bread, and mends what is broken. Your hunger is meant to lead you somewhere.