You Do Not Have to Earn Bread

The fluorescent lights hum overhead, and your hands are shaking because choosing a box feels like deciding if you are worthy of breakfast. You stand frozen in the aisle, paralyzed by the weight of a simple decision, convinced that picking the wrong one proves you don't deserve to eat at all.

But the light does not require you to get it right before you are fed. It came to the well where the outcast hid, not to quiz her on her past, but to offer water while she was still trembling.

The same light is here, in this grocery store, in this moment of panic. It sees the shaking hands and does not turn away in disappointment.

It simply waits for you to reach out. You do not have to earn the bread.

You just have to take it.