Hey everyone, thanks for listening. My name is Bethany Allen. I am the pastor of

Women here at Bridgetown. If you don't know what you're listening to, you are

listening to a midweek podcast for Bridgetown Church. And on occasion we do

this. And with me this afternoon is the lovely Abby Porter. She is married to

Josh Porter, pastor of Van City Church right across the river in Vancouver. And

the lovely Natalie Carell who is on staff with us, part of our team, just an

amazing woman, an amazing thinker. And we're so glad that you're joining us. We

just wanted to take a little bit of time to talk more at length about fasting.

And in that, the way that it kind of intersects with the day-to-day life of

those of us who are trying to live out and practice the teachings of Jesus. And

we thought it'd be really important to share stories, practical stories from

our life for those of us who've had a complicated relationship with food. Also

to those who've had an eating disorder and have had to interact on that

journey, particularly with fasting, we just thought it'd be helpful to address

how to move forward in a real kind of way in a practical day-to-day situation.

And do that through a conversation and dialogue. So that's why we're here. If

you've listened, hopefully you have to the podcast. John Mark covered fasting

for us. So we should all be experts at this point. But if you're unfamiliar,

you need a little bit of a recap. We talked about fasting being a couple things.

One, that it actually helps us as disciples of Jesus to break an unhealthy

relationship with food. And as Americans, we know that's something that we

probably need to do and do regularly. But more importantly, on the spiritual

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