Hi, and welcome to the Five Word Prayers Daily, a five day a week daily devotional where we share the word, prayers, and our heart.

I'm Lisa Whittle, and I welcome you to just five minutes with me, which I trust and pray will be five minutes well spent.

Well, it's the last day in our struggle is real series, and I have to say that God has been dealing with me. Hope that's the case for you too. We've talked about a lot of things in a short time,

and today we're tackling something that has been a struggle for me my whole life, really,

our relationship with food and God helping us deal with that in a healthy way. Again, a lot to

talk about in five minutes, but the goal is to open up the issue, be honest, and ask God to

help us to deal with a very real issue in life,

what we put in our mouths. Here we go.

Like I said in my intro, my relationship with food has been a struggle since I was quite young.

I can remember my grandmother, who was awesome and wonderful, saying to me one time as I sat in front of the TV with a bag of chips,

you won't be able to eat like this one day, and it was the first time I remember feeling shame over food.

I was never a real overweight child, but as a teen and beyond, I was always aware of my hips and being curvy, being a size 10 when

others were a size 2 or a 4, and I didn't like it. I never felt skinny. And I always felt like this was a

serious flaw. Food represented something I loved, but I shouldn't love. So in a way, it was taboo in

it's kind of a sense. So when I was in a mode of

rebellion, it was the first thing I was drawn to. I know it sounds kind of funny, but for me,

that's what it was. And that was pretty often, by the way, as a teen. I didn't understand health

until I was in college. And then at that point point I just wanted to be thin so I exercised

myself silly to keep the weight off and I just lived in a very familiar cycle to many women in

particular I don't have time to go into the whole thing but just trust me when I say for me the

struggle has been real the struggle is real for many of us with food We love it too much or we hate it too much.

We don't know how to properly balance it or we know how and just want to eat what we want

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