I AM HUNGRY by Mary N. Bradley

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Michigan · Apr 3, 1900

“I AM HUNGRY.”

By Mary N. Bradley

MARY N. BRADLEY.

Did you ever suffer the pangs of hunger? I have. I have been so hungry that I could not sleep at night, and too weary to do my work in the morning. I have been so hungry that I would have given fifty dollars for a pound of the right kind of nourishing food, and would have walked miles to obtain it, had the money been available.

So, when I hear the cries of the poor starving souls of heathen lands, my heart aches for them so much that I can not help giving all my money to buy food for their hungry souls. My Lord provides for my physical needs, but man can not live by bread alone. My soul gets so hungry for Christian fellowship—for the communion of the saints—that I can not sleep.

Why don’t I go to church and get refreshed? — Well, maybe I am a poor, lone missionary, many miles from any of the Lord’s people, trying to win souls for him. How glad I would be to see the dear, familiar face of a brother or sister once more! How I’d love to talk over the happy times when we used to go to meeting together, and drink to our fill of the blessed Holy Spirit’s presence.

Maybe I am one of those lonely persons who live so many miles from the church that I can not go unless some kind brother takes me; but no one cares “to be bothered.”

Maybe I am that poor invalid pauper who rejoiced in the Lord’s goodness, several years ago, when some of his dear saints came to my house and preached the gospel, and then left the field to others who did not think my soul worth the effort to try to save.

Maybe I am that rich man’s wife whom the church inwardly regards a hypocrite, and does not care to visit, because I do not take part with them, although they have told me my faults, and asked me to attend services, and urged me to help them in the good work. Maybe they do not think Matt. 7:1 is applicable in my case.

They have not seen the work the left hand kept concealed, nor the work the right hand failed to record. Maybe they don’t know that rich men sometimes keep their accounts in their own names, and grudgingly dole out to their families just enough to keep them from taking the heavenward (?) journey. Maybe they don’t know that some church-members’ companions subscribe for such worldly newspapers as they wish, buy their children’s shoes and school-books, and pay the family grocery bill every month, and somehow their wives can not manage to swap old, made-over clothes (all that they possess) for a year’s subscription to the church paper. Maybe they do not know that their stay-at-home neighbor is literally starving for a sight of their faces, or even a glimpse of the dear old Signs of the Times or the REVIEW AND HERALD.

No; they don’t know it; but that lonely, starving soul who saw an angel one day, many years ago, in the dear, unselfish, consecrated canvasser who came with the blessed gospel to her door, where she stood frying doughnuts, knows it. She is used to being hungry and lonely and neglected and misunderstood. She does n’t tell strangers all about her private affairs; so they think she stays away from meeting because she wishes to, and they do not take the trouble to go and see whether she has food for her soul or not. If they did, they might get the best meal set before their poor, shrunken, half-fed souls that they have tasted in many a day; for sometimes hungry folks have plenty to eat; and sometimes stay-at-home persons have a supply of good religious thought, just longing to find an outlet where it can help some one more needy than themselves.

There are two kinds of hunger, and both need to be appeased. There are two kinds of starvation, and the Lord included both when he said, “Feed my sheep.” There are two kinds of shepherds, and the Lord told them to feed two kinds of sheep—the grown ones and the lambs.

There are poor, hungry, starving sheep and lambs out in the lonely mountain or desert, who will rejoice when the Good Shepherd comes to take them home.