That Poor Girl

In this episode, Keith & Megan Peeler discuss finding one of Megan's old journals. They reflect on their spiritual growth in Inner Healing Prayer and Deliverance over time. 

Transcript

Hey, welcome to the next episode of the Everfree Podcast.

We're glad you're here and thanks for listening.

Hey friends, welcome to this next episode, this is episode three, season three.

And today this episode is called...

Poor Girl.

That Poor Girl.

Oh, that poor girl.

Bless her heart.

We're Southern people if you haven't figured that out.

Bless, well bless her heart.

I'm gonna tell you what.

Why are we saying, why are we titling this, that poor girl?

We are cleaning out our garage and in the midst of...

That means I'm cleaning out and she's picking up a few things for me.

Yeah, I'm finding old journals.

And as I was reading my old journals, I read through them for over an hour and it was a journal from when you and I were first getting married to all the different moves and pregnancies that I've had.

And as I was reading through what I wrote, I just came up to you and I was like, that poor girl.

She didn't know.

She didn't know what it meant to be free or how to maintain freedom or pursue freedom.

She just kind of sat in her stuff.

Yeah.

And when you say freedom, because this is Everfree, we talk about being free.

Our tagline is free people, free people.

But we want to keep this message before everyone.

What do you mean?

When you say that girl didn't know freedom, what does that mean to our listeners?

I saw a lot of words that showed torment and a lot of pain.

And me as a different person back then didn't know how to get free of that stuff.

So you say torment.

What does that mean?

Because again, more people are sharing the podcast.

Not everyone is coming to the same podcast, the same language.

We're coming from a traditional evangelical background.

There are people out there with charismatic language and Catholic and we just, there's a whole different.

So when you, you're looking back with your current eyes at that poor girl and you're saying here, she was tormented.

What does that mean?

I had a lot of fear and insecurity.

I felt like, um, I would walk into situations and I would wonder what people were thinking about me specifically because I had a child at a wedlock.

So when you and I were first married, I felt insecure by what people were thinking.

So I think when I think of torment, I think of feeling the pressures of wanting to perform for people or look a certain way and really feeling fearful of what people would think is all fear and insecurity.

Um, because I want to make sure that their listeners are clear about this.

I don't think so.

No, I don't think so at all, but I do think that I could have said something like if this is a spirit of fear, you have to go.

Okay.

So when you're saying torment, you're talking about spiritual torment.

Okay.

You're not talking about mental torment.

That's just, I guess this is what I'm trying to clarify with what I think I know what you're saying, but I don't live in your head and the podcast listeners don't live in either of our.

We've been married 18 years.

You don't know what I'm thinking.

If I had a decoder ring and then look here, y'all, I don't know if y'all have this experience, but she keeps changing her mind.

I'm growing and changing.

Oh man.

That's the whole point.

No, anyway, that's a different marriage podcast for a different day.

Anyway.

So, okay.

So torment, when we talk about being free with Everfree, um, what we're not, let me just repeat this.

What we're not saying is free from pain.

Right.

Free from struggle, free from sin, free from, I mean, we're free in the spirit.

My flesh continues to sin.

Even though I have done after a lot of years of prayer, a lot of years of ministry, a lot of years of discipline.

Um, you know, I've learned how to protect myself.

I've done all the right Jesus stuff and Bible stuff and small group stuff and church stuff and all that.

But in the process of all that, my star still struggle with sin.

So when we're saying free to be free, we're not saying that everything's going to be easy once you figure out this prayer formula and you'll sort it all out.

What we are saying though is there's a huge difference between walking as a follower of Jesus Christ and doing all the right things.

Cause cause I would say, I mean that poor girl, you that we're talking about, um, before 2010, that would have been probably 2005 to 2010.

And that, that was the window where you were pregnant with Olivia, our first child together.

And that poor girl didn't know anything about spiritual warfare.

Right.

And so that's why I think that's why I'm just using the, I'm pushing you a little bit with these words cause I want to make sure that the words that we're using, like I know what you mean, but whoever's listening may not.

Right.

So, so that poor girl, as you look back, you saw torment.

So her fear and insecurity, those are just emotions.

And what you're seeing the, the you 12, I'm not good at math.

However many those many years ago, um, like, why do you see it now?

Like what was there a phrase in there?

Was there a tone?

Was there something that was just bubbling up?

Like you experienced those feelings again.

You remember those feelings again.

So so with the new lens that you have today, what, what did you see that was the difference between that young woman experiencing fear and insecurity versus being tormented by it?

I think in my late twenties or early thirties, I didn't know my identity.

Wait a minute.

You're still 29, right?

Oh, right.

Right.

Um, but I didn't know my true identity.

I knew what the Bible said about my identity, but I didn't, I didn't know how to, how to absorb that truth.

So I, you know, being raised Baptist, I just felt like I had to perform and I had to listen.

And I did a lot of Bible studies and I had a lot of great words written in my journal.

But when I read them, it felt like, yeah, you're writing these great devotionals and these great words that you're hearing from God, but you don't do anything with them.

Because the next page you're talking about how you feel fat and you feel ugly and you feel insecure about what people are going to think about you.

And it was like, but didn't you just write words that told you what to do with this stuff?

And I didn't know how to do that.

And I think that's where it was interesting to see through the lens that I can look through now and know my identity and my authority and what, what I can do in those moments that I didn't know that I could do then.

Yeah.

So what, what this, let's go to the journals.

Cause that's what we're talking about.

We're talking about that poor girl.

What there's fear, there's insecurity.

What were the scenarios?

Okay.

Because let's, let's get practical.

Cause I think that's one of the things that you and I like to do is let's be practical.

What was, can you, whatever you want to share, share a memory from the journal that you went back to that you went, look at that.

What was something that came up?

When we would move from one location to the next, I had a lot of fear.

I honestly didn't grow up moving around or changing locations.

And the change was so unpredictable that it would scare me.

So I remember when we first got married and we were living in orange, Texas, and we were leaving orange to go to Highland park.

I remember looking at that neighborhood and thinking, I'm not going to fit in here.

I'm not going to have friends.

I'm here with I'm six months pregnant and I've got a daughter.

And so I was, I was super insecure and fragile with all of that transition happening so quickly.

Well, let me paint the picture of the differences between orange, Texas, and Highland park, just so that because these are places in Texas that anybody that's not from Texas wouldn't understand orange was just an amazing kind of smaller town.

I bought the house.

We had a beautiful, I mean, amazing house.

It was one, like half an acre, a cute little three bedroom, two, two, was it a two bath or one bath?

I think it was just one bath.

No, we had one hour bath.

Yeah, that's right.

So, you know, three, two bed.

And I bought that house for $65,000.

Right.

And it was a great house.

It didn't need a lot.

It was, it was old.

I remodeled the kitchen.

It was a beautiful, it's an amazing town.

Nice parks.

It's, I mean, it's south.

It's the coast.

It's all that.

Lots of mosquitoes.

It's a great town.

We loved it.

Great church.

That whole community is an amazing community.

Smaller town.

But again, $65,000 for a, you know, 1,800 square foot beautiful home.

When Highland Park is a more affluent neighborhood, probably one of the most affluent neighborhoods in all of Texas.

And the home that we lived in was owned by the church.

And so it was probably a million and a half, million six.

And in that neighborhood would have been a teardown because it was so old.

People have ripped it down.

So you're talking about two very different kind of economies.

Both amazing neighborhoods, both amazing people, but just very different.

And one of the, one of the cultural norms of Highland Park was that families would often wait till later to get pregnant because it, because it was a harder neighbor to get into, if you will, they would do two incomes.

Establishing their careers.

Yeah, you would get two careers, save your money, buy a nice house in the nice neighborhood and then have your kids.

So that's what I mean, that's what I remember was, you know, going to one or two, those first parties and, you know, there were other pregnant moms there, but they were at least a decade older than you.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And they're all looking at you like, who's this little girl in her pregnant little body?

Am I, you know, and everybody was wonderful.

It wasn't, but that didn't mean there weren't very obvious differences.

So you, you know, imagine, you know, on a minister salary and being 10 years younger, a very affluent neighborhood and that the people were fantastic.

You can't help but find your own insecurities around the differences of lifestyle capabilities or capacity.

Well, and I wasn't comfortable in my own skin.

I didn't know how to be comfortable.

Like I didn't know how to be content with how God had made me because I had so many insecurities getting in the way and so many past lies about my personality and how I made that we're sneaking in and literally paralyzing me in certain situations.

So, so we have these very real, it's a very big life change.

You're, you're married for a year, big life change.

You've had one address that you were born into, other than going to college.

Then we moved to orange, spent a year there if we get married in orange, Texas.

And so after one year of that, and then there's another change, I get the job in Dallas.

There's that change.

Now we're in this place.

So looking back on that poor girl, what would, what would you want to say to that poor girl?

Like if you met her, if that girl signed up for an appointment with us for prayer, where would you start?

I think I would start with my experience of getting pregnant at 23 years old.

Because if I look back at my journals, a lot of my insecurity is rooted in my experience at 23 of having a child out of wedlock, being raised Baptist, feeling the insecurity and like shame on you.

There's a lot of shame and embarrassment.

And so I think I would want to know that that 23 year old had healing.

Yeah.

And your church was super accepting of you.

Yeah.

And it was a great Baptist church, but like, where do you think that shame came from?

Because the church at that, from what you've told me, like that church was amazing.

They loved you through the whole thing.

Your young life leaders that you're a part of, they loved you through that whole thing really, really well.

So where would you say that that shame came from?

Was that human?

Was it supernatural?

Was it both?

I think I was just raised to know that that was wrong.

Okay.

That makes sense.

So the Okay, everybody.

Sure.

Record scratch.

We were in the middle of recording this episode and the power somehow on this laptop decided it didn't want to charge the computer and it just died.

So it is now two days later and we're jumping back into this conversation.

We were just talking about babe, that where did the shame come from?

That where this episode is that poor girl.

And so where did the shame come from?

And you had just said, uh, cause the church environment you had was awesome, but you just, you said, I was just raised to know that it was wrong.

So as we were kind of going, getting back into the episode, we're like, what, with what you know, know about shame, both the emotion and the spiritual nature of it, where did the shame come from?

What do you want to share about that?

I know that as we ended that last episode, we got interrupted that I said, looking back can look, can be really hard.

Like it's almost like I'm feeling that shame again, even though I've been freed of it.

Interesting.

Okay.

And so what I sat with in the last couple of days was realizing our asking Lord, is it worth having to look back?

Like, why do we have to look back and, and, and experience the shame or the pain of the experiences that we had written in my journals and have, have them come back to me.

And I think there's great purpose in us doing that.

And so I think that I, I was feeling really vulnerable and sharing how hard it was for me and, and I didn't know what I know now as an, as an adult and, or as an adult, I was an adult, you know, younger.

Do you mean you were, you're processing that like as you're feeling it now again?

Yeah.

So you're kind of, you're kind of saying to yourself, why am I feeling this again?

Right?

Yeah.

Yeah.

And I know that if I start feeling that way, it means that maybe the Lord wants to go a little deeper and healing my heart over some stuff that I didn't even know I was carrying still.

Well, and that's, I mean, I think that's one of the things that people say to us a lot.

Like, do I have to go back into all these things?

And our answer is I don't know.

Right.

Because one, as we've talked about how we pray with people and just allowing that process to happen is there's no agenda for us.

We're not like, there's not a plan of attack on what we're going to do while we do this.

And then we do that.

We just, we were really, it's about intimacy with God and having him speak into the space.

So the answer is honestly, I don't know.

Right.

I don't know what the Lord wants to do with your healing.

And I think it's different for different people.

I think some people really need to go back and find Jesus in those painful moments and others are able to let that go and move forward with freedom.

Yeah.

And it's very different depending on how you process and experience the power of God.

I think now looking back, I would want to tell that poor girl, you have so much authority and you don't even know it.

And you have an identity that is so unbelievable because you're so unique the way God's made you and knit you together in your mother's womb.

And I want to remind you of that, poor girl.

Like, you know your power, your identity, your freedom.

And I actually have tools that I can give you to show you how to do that.

And that's what I want to do to that poor girl.

I want to give her that freedom and show her that she can have it.

Yeah.

Because that's essentially, I mean at this stage in our ministry life, that is what people are asking of us when they call.

When you share your life with the women that you minister to, we get connected to people.

And at this point in the life of Everfree, you know, we're developing a team of prayer people.

It's not just Keith and Megan anymore.

And it's gone from, you know, we're not going to become corporate in any way, but there's some coordination of things that we have to do to multiply other leaders.

But those leaders come because they've been prayed for, they've been shepherded.

And I think it's really helpful.

I really, I mean, I know it was hard for you to find that journal, but I think it's really helpful to have this episode of call that poor girl because there's a lot of poor girls and poor guys that are calling us and going, I'm just stuck.

I just, and I don't understand.

And so, so, okay.

So processing shame has been a big part of that.

Are there other things that you are thinking about or as you went back to the journal, are there other observations of that poor girl that you had besides just the shame that popped up?

I think what I saw as a theme was my identity of insecurity.

I truly felt like if I didn't perform a certain way or please people or do something for someone, and it was out of obligation.

And because I felt like I had to not because I wanted to.

And it was people pleasing.

Yeah, which is insecurity.

You do that because you're insecure and you want people to like you.

And so I don't think I realized how much I did that unintentionally.

Yeah, you don't know what you don't know.

We all think we're self-aware until somebody points something out in us that we go, no, I don't.

Yeah.

And then you, oh, maybe I do do that.

Right.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And I appreciate how the Lord gently walked me through that journey of looking back and then seeing where I am now and feeling just the encouragement of the process.

It's a hard process, but I trust it because I've lived it.

So, so shame, insecurity.

I don't know if anybody out there listening can relate to those things.

I mean, not me.

I'm perfect.

I've dealt with all my stuff.

But those of you that might be listening might.

Okay.

So what I'm joking aside, what else?

I mean, there's the people pleasing.

Was there anything else there that you saw in that poor girl?

Yeah, I saw fear of change.

Sorry, babe.

Sorry, babe.

I married a change agent.

You married the wrong guy.

I married a really strong change agent.

He likes to change a lot.

But I was fearful of change of the unknown, of new scenarios, new environments.

And I think that made me feel unstable.

But I feel like now after all the changes we've been through in our marriage of 18 years, I feel like I can say confidently that I'm ready for whatever change comes in our future.

Because I can look back and see the testimony of how faithful God was with every change that we went through.

So that's a positive thing.

But I do know that change is an unstable foundation for a lot of people.

Yeah.

And again, like the Everfree podcast is not just about the human emotions, but it's about the spiritual nature of what's affecting it.

Spiritual warfare is at the core of what we're advocating for.

It is so much more a part of our daily lives than most Christians want to talk about.

I actually have more open conversations about spiritual realm things with non-Christians.

Because it's just obvious to them.

But there's a taboo, or I'm not sure exactly what it is.

But so with that in mind, this is the Everfree podcast, not just Keith and Megan talking about their feelings.

Right.

What would you or how would you want to talk to that poor girl?

So that poor girl shows up, requests a prayer appointment.

What do you want to share with her about what you now know about spiritual warfare?

Because I think everybody can relate to fear.

I mean, fear.

Yeah.

Everybody can relate to shame.

Everyone can relate to people.

Not everyone, but a lot of people can relate to people pleasing as emotions and as ways of thinking.

But what would you want to say to that poor girl about the spiritual implications of all of those things as you look back at her?

I would want to tell her, first of all, that she is a co-er and that her identity is rooted in being a child of God.

And that that position gives her authority to tell that junk to get out of the way and go.

So I would want her to know first who she is because of who God said she is.

Which in my journal, my Bible studies and my scriptures that I was studying was showing me that.

Right.

And I will tell that on the next page.

So I think I would really want her to experience the tangible presence of Jesus speaking to her, which that's what I would say.

Jesus, would you go and speak to that 30 year old Megan?

So I think what I'm hearing when you say that is that speaks to the process of prayer that we've learned.

Yes.

Yeah.

The way we pray has changed since we knew that poor girl.

And that way is the way of listening prayer, the way of conversational prayer.

Oh, Siri wanted to join the conversation.

Siri doesn't understand because series of the devil.

Anyway, just kidding.

Totally joking.

My watch just started talking.

So the way of prayer.

Right.

And so the way we've talked about that is there's a difference between theologically, intellectually reading scripture and understanding it.

I can tell you, you know, based on reading a book and reading some commentaries and reading the Bible history, that Jesus said this and it means this for his people.

And Jesus says the captive free.

I mean, the number of times that I read Jesus says the captive free and I go, then why don't I feel free?

Right.

Maybe Jesus isn't who I thought he was, but the chain breaker Jesus is the one that we meet when we meet in that way of praying, the intimacy of prayer, the listening prayer, we often call it or others call it listening prayer.

But the interaction of the intimacy and obedience of relationship with God, not just the rule following Jesus, the rule following God, the Holy Spirit convicts you of the sin in your life, which they all do.

But to and for the purpose of relationship and restoring and being that chain breaker.

So I was like, and I wasn't, I wouldn't call myself that poor boy in that season, but our theology was the same.

A practical application of that theology was the same at that time.

But what's changed is our understanding of the nature of prayer and the purpose of prayer, not just as a discipline of the thing that I sit down and get on my knees and tell God the things I need.

Right.

But as Paul talks about, to pray without ceasing, that seemed to me in those days like a discipline I could never attain.

Right.

And the purpose of inviting Jesus into that inner healing time of presence with him is to prepare me to go to battle.

It's to prepare me to say, okay, insecurity, people pleasing, not healed for heal sake.

No, it's to give me a place of position and authority.

And the purpose of that is to go out to bat and say, no, Spirit realm, you don't get to torment me.

You don't get to hold me back.

And I think that's the part that can be scary if you don't know where you stand.

Yeah.

And that poor girl didn't.

She said she didn't know where she stood.

Yeah.

Right.

And so that's part of what we're exploring.

I think this is really good.

I think this is helpful just as a way of unpacking.

And one of the things that you always say, and we're currently writing curriculum around your statement, there's always more.

So pray for us as we're doing it.

If you hear this and it's still 2022 around October, pray for us because I'm still trying to put the pieces together to put this curriculum out.

But we say there's always more for a reason.

There's always more to reflect upon.

There's always more grace.

There's always more forgiveness.

There's always more freedom.

And the deeper we go in our relationship with God, just like with us, we've had some really intense and intimate conversations about how our lives and bodies have changed because of all the circumstances of cancer and changing and aging and things.

We wouldn't love each other and trust each other at the degree that we do if we hadn't continued to talk about hard things.

That's right.

Right.

And so that's the same with our relationship with our Father in Heaven is there's always more to lean into.

And so I think it's really good.

God's always really generous with us about these ideas because this came out of, we're cleaning the garage.

Right.

I'm just making some space and you find some journals and the Lord, what he goes, he brings you back.

You see her again, but differently because you kind of forgot about that girl.

Really?

Oh, absolutely.

She's, she's kind of been put away.

Right.

Because she's not who you are anymore.

Yeah.

But this reflection, this going back, though it was uncomfortable, it didn't have the kind of sting.

My, my impression of watching you do it was it didn't have the sting of what you were experiencing back then.

Yes, it brought back your memories.

Yes, it brought back some tangible feelings.

You felt it in your body.

It was real.

You had a visceral experience, but because of what you know now, because you do walk with the Lord, because you do expect his presence, you do expect his voice to lead you and the spirit to guide you.

And you do expect his word to form you and shape you, that your maturity has grown.

And then that the reflecting and going back is like, you know what?

Praise God.

This isn't anywhere near like it was.

This over here maybe isn't a hundred percent gone, but man, it is nowhere like it was.

And that's what isn't that long ago.

No, honestly.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And I think the question I would like to leave our audience with is, do you believe what Jesus says about you?

Like who he says you are?

Do you believe it?

And if you don't, why?

Because you can trust him with those questions of why.

I trust him with those questions and I constantly get areas that need exposure from him to show me that, oh, I don't believe you, that you say who I am.

And so I really would love for our audience to sit with that question and present it before Jesus and say, I don't believe you or I do believe you, but I want to know more.

And I believe and trust that he will speak to you.

I'm forgetting the reference as you're bringing this up because I wasn't expecting to say this, but I'm remembering the verse.

I believe, help me in my unbelief.

Right.

Yeah.

And so friends, as you're listening, we want to pray a blessing over you.

We just bless you in the name of Jesus to hear with ears that can hear, to see with eyes that can see and have hearts that are open to the fullness of the truth of who the Father says you are.

And so we bless you to go to the Word today, to go find your Bible.

Get on Google if you have to and Google my identity in Christ.

If you don't know where to start, Google and use Bible gateway or red letter Bible or whatever, blue letter, whatever.

I don't know what the website, but you know, they are, you can find them.

You're smart people find some scriptures that talk about your identity and ask yourself this question.

Is that poor girl in your past?

Is that poor guy in your past or is that poor girl or that poor guy still present?

Yeah.

And if it's still present, we want to encourage you to step into that and ask the Lord to increase your prayer life.

And if you have questions, email us, reach out.

We'd love to help you process that and get on the right path of hearing from God and praying and all those things.

But, but we really want to encourage you that, that that poor girl doesn't exist in my wife anymore because Jesus said her phrase God.

Amen.

She was beautiful, but she was hard to live with sometimes.

We're going to always keep it real on the Everfree podcast.

All right, you guys.

Thank you so much for being with us today, babe.

Thanks for opening your heart.

Always.

I know you're going to do it and I expect it of you because that's who you are, but I love it about you and appreciate it.

Yeah.

So you guys have a great day.

All right.

We'll talk to you soon.

Bye bye.

Friends, thanks for listening to the Everfree podcast today.

You can find us on the web at www.everfree.us.

We look forward to connecting with you and helping encourage you in your prayer life.

God bless you.

God bless you.

God bless you.