Episode 32 Transcript
[00:00:00] Welcome to your daily bread with co hosts, Abbie Stasior and Hannah Calhoun. We're here to be your weekly source of spiritual nourishment, guiding you to find food freedom in a deeper connection with Christ.
Hannah: As we explore the intersection of faith and nutrition, these bite sized episodes will help you heal your relationship with food and your body through practical advice, biblical wisdom, and heartfelt encouragement.
Abbie: And as a disclaimer, we are not pastors, but passionate registered dietitians and sisters in Christ, offering our insights to support you on this faith filled journey to a healthier, more fulfilling life. Join us by taking a seat at our table as we break bread and allow God in to break the chains of diet culture.
Hello, hello, y'all. We are so excited for another episode and we just appreciate y'all being along for our journey recently. Hannah and I have just gotten, um, just an influx of, um, like messages from y'all and, um, and just ways that different episodes have touched you and we are just so, so grateful.
Praise God. Um, That you have found the shown and you have been connected and we just are continuing to pray for you that transformation is going to happen and we pray that. This episode will be especially healing for you on the days when things get really, really tough. Um, and you just feel like you are a puddle in, in your emotions and in your feels.
We hope that this episode will be a comfort to you. So we are going to be reading from Psalm 56. Uh, verses one through eight, specifically in the ESV version. Be gracious to me, O God, for man tramples on me all day long, and attacker oppresses me. My enemies trample on me all day long, for many attack me proudly.
When I am afraid, I put my trust in you. In God, whose word I praise. In God I trust, I shall not be afraid. What can flesh do to me? All day long they injure my cause. All their thoughts are against me for evil. They stir up strife, they lurk, they watch my steps as they have waited for my life. For their crime will they escape?
In wrath cast down the peoples, O God. You have kept count of my tossings. Put my tears in your bottle. Are they not in your book? So, um, I actually heard a sermon, uh, in the last year, um, on Psalm 56. And at this time, this is David writing this Psalm and he is hiding from Saul. So he is constantly under attack by, um, Saul and his, his army of people.
And right now David has the Lord's favor. David has, um, The Lord's power upon him. And there's stuff that happened in First Samuel that, um, happened to Saul that he was like being disobedient to God. So God's like, all right, I'm not going to continue to bless you because you're being disobedient. So now we're going to put a new King in charge.
You're like, I'm going to put my favor and I'm going to rest my spirit on David. So he is feeling like under attack and just like one blow after the next. And how many times have we felt like that? Where life is just. continuing to kick us in the knees. And if it's not one thing, it's the next. And it's another, it's another, and you just can't catch a break.
And at some point you just reach a breaking point, especially emotionally. And what I love about this verse is that God is with you in that. And he collects all of your tears. in a bottle. He saves them. Your tears are precious to him, and your tears are not wasted. And um, I just think so many people need to hear that, that it's okay to feel.
Your feelings are not sinful. That was something that was said to me by one of my spiritual directors, and it was like a complete revelation. And I'm like, Oh, wow. Like feelings are not simple. Um, sometimes what we do with those feelings can lead to sinful actions, but, um, it's not a sin to let yourself feel it's okay to be undone, especially in the Lord's presence.
And one thing that the Lord really put me, I put on my heart when prepping for this episode is that we have to feel to heal and you can't heal what you hide. And of course the Lord knows. everything that's on your mind. He knows everything you're feeling. He knew everything that you were going to struggle with before you were even born.
And he still chose you. He still called you, and he still vowed to never leave nor forsake you. There is nothing, Romans 8 38 to 39 says, there's nothing that you can do that will separate, separate you from the Lord's love when you were in Christ Jesus. So God knows everything that you're thinking and feeling right now, but he needs you to say it.
He needs you to go to his presence and get undone, get angry, and just feel your feels, whatever, frustrated, any doubt, anything that you're feeling, bring that to the Lord, lay that at his feet, surrender that to him so that he can be with you in those moments and walk you through it. And, you know, I was, I feel like, oh, I'm still somewhat in my Moses era.
But, um, when I was really in the thick of my Moses era, the Lord said to me, like, I'm not going to like take you out of this, but I'm going to park the seat and make a way through it. And so that's what he's probably going to do with your situation, right? Whatever you're going through. It's very frustrating when you're trying to heal your relationship with food.
It's very frustrating to be feeling uncomfortable, uncomfortable in your body in the summer months. Um, when everyone's going to the pool and you don't feel confident in a bikini or, you know, wearing shorts or wearing short sleeve tops or anything like that. And, um, you know, Hannah and I definitely feel those real things.
So just want to let you know that God is with you in that. And, um, I think the Psalms can really be something for you to pray, pray with. Like this Psalm also made me think of Psalm 23. Like, even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil because you are with me. And Psalm 34, the Lord is close to the broken hearted, and I think helps those who are crushed in spirit.
I think that's the verse for that. Um, so he's with you in all of that.
Hannah: No, it's so true. And like this can, you know, be relatable for so many reasons. But you know, of course, on this show, we talk about food and body image and because that's a big struggle for so many people, you know, especially women, we have a large audience of mostly women.
But that's not to say that that men don't struggle with this as well. And, you know, our tears that we have shed. Over our, our health and our relationship with food and are we doing the right thing and are we eating the right things and like are we feeding our children the right things and I don't know and there's so many messages out there and like people tell me this and people tell me that and I, I'm like I'm trying, I'm trying my best or you know maybe you've been going to the gym and you feel like you don't see your progress and you don't like the way you look in shorts and you don't like the way you look in short sleeve tops and, and you don't like the way you look in a swimsuit and you feel like you're missing out and, These are things that, that we can, that we cry about.
I mean, it, you know, and, and the Lord cares. He cares about our tears and, and it feels weird as a Christian woman to care about how you look. Cause I know, you know, it's like a big thing, uh, about, you know, you want to be a, a girl after God's own heart and you don't want to care, you know, you don't want to be vain It's hard, because it's almost like, I don't really want to talk about this, like, I feel like it's bad to talk about this, or it's shameful, or is it sinful, like, I don't know, but like, I care, and, and, you know, sometimes it can feel like you're at war with your body and with yourself, and, I mean, I've had those days where I've had a pile of clothes that I just changed out of, because I just don't feel right, and I'm crying on the floor in my underwear, because nothing feels good, and I feel like I hate myself, My body and, you know, we've talked about how we're made in the image of God, you know, we've had episode an episode about that before, um, but just know that, like, this is a very real experience and the Lord cares about the tears that we cry over our health, our body, you know, our relationship with exercise and food and, you know, And he cares and he collects all those tears.
And this is a valid experience as a human being, as a woman. And, you know, we can come to the Lord with these feelings. Um, and, you know, I think about how in Galatians it says, let us not become weary in doing good. Uh, it also says for at the proper time, we'll reap a harvest if we do not give up. And, you know, of course that's talking about like doing good for the Lord and everything.
And, and I believe that. The work that we do to invite God into our relationship with food in our body is pleasing to the Lord. And You know, that is part of our renewing is, is not being vain, but understanding how we can steward our bodies well, um, in a healthy way, not in an obsessive way, like that, that is part of the Lord's work in your life, in your heart, in your mind.
Um, so do not grow weary as you try to navigate. You know, that personal, very, very personal relationship that you have with, with your own health and your body, um, do not grow weary. Give it to God. Do not be discouraged. Um, and whenever you, whenever you shed some tears of frustration of, you know, brokenheartedness, just know that the Lord, the Lord cares.
And he sees you and, um, like Abby said, like, in order to heal, you have to feel and it's, it's shows that you're healing when you are feeling and I've, I've talked about this with some, you know, eating disorder patients that a lot of people who have eating disorders. Not all of them, but many of them will use it to feel numb because they have a lot of pain in their life and they want to feel numb.
And so as they start therapy, as they start eating, the cobwebs clear in their brain, that's how I describe it. And they start to feel, usually when they're in treatment, they're uncovering a lot of trauma, the root of the eating disorder, so a lot of negative feelings can come up. There's a lot of tears, sadness, you feel very triggered, you want to go back into the eating disorder so you don't feel all these things.
And I tell them, like, Unfortunately, life, uh, has good things and bad things, and in order to feel the good things, we have to also feel the bad things and the sad things. And we can't just feel the good things and be numb to the sad things. Like, We feel all of it, right? We ate from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and now we have knowledge of good and evil, and it is what it is, you know what I mean?
Yeah, and
Abbie: Jesus felt all of these things too, and praise God that he sent his son down to be fully man and fully God, to be able to fully understand the human experience. So everything that you're going through, Jesus has all of it. also felt. So that's why you can go to him because he empathizes and he will take compassion on you and be with you in that.
And also praise God that we have these Psalms that have, I mean, there's angry Psalms, there's sad Psalms, you know, there's the whole book of limitations. Praise God that we have these books and these tools to turn to that can cover a whole magnitude of different things that we're feeling. Um, so that you can be praying through that, meditating on those things, and you have a language for, for how you're feeling and God can speak to you through that.
Um, so one thing that God put on my heart right before we started recording, I was like, I gotta make sure that I say that. Um, Because so often we get caught up in our Bible in a year plan and checking the box and it's like sometimes when we're in a season and we're going through something, feeling some type of way, we need to stop whatever plan we're doing and just like meditate on a verse, meditate on a psalm and take your time with it and sit with it for a bit.
It's okay to deviate from your plan. Because the point is not to finish your plan or finish the devotional. The point is to be in relationship and in communion with God. And sometimes getting rid of the to dos and, Oh, I should be doing this or making progress in this plan. Like that is holding you back from actually experiencing the transformation power of His Word and His presence.
Thank you for joining us on this episode of your daily bread. We hope you found inspiration and practical guidance to nourish your body and soul. Remember the journey to a healthier relationship with food and a deeper connection with Christ is ongoing and we're here to support you every step of the way.
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As we conclude today's episode, we encourage you to take what resonated with you into your quiet time with God, allow God to reveal to you any changes that you can make for his glory, trusting that you are fearfully and wonderfully made in his image. Stay tuned for our next episode where we'll continue to explore how God's word helps us heal our relationship with food in our bodies Until then may you find both physical and spiritual nourishment and may you be filled with his peace and joy.
God bless
