Cancer Surgeries Vulnerability and Prayer

In this episode, Keith and Megan Peeler share their journey of breast cancer. This episode may be difficult for some listeners. Keith and Megan are going bo be vulnerable about all that they have been experienceing on their journey of cancer and recovery.

Transcript

Hey everyone, welcome to the Everfree podcast.

This is season two, episode number three.

Hey, welcome back.

It is now episode three of season two and we have been telling you the story.

If you haven't gotten the other episodes, there's two before this.

This is just us catching you guys up on life and what's happened.

Not just because we want you to know our story, but because our story has really shaped the way we approach Everfree as a ministry.

And so as we get started today, we're going to be talking about some things.

It's about the surgery journey, Megan's surgery journey.

So we just want to be upfront about that that we're not going to be, again, we're trying to find this balance of vulnerability and not being grotesque, but also sharing some important things.

So it could be triggering for some of you, but we want to be vulnerable and be honest about that even as you begin this time listening to the podcast.

And if it is triggering, please know that that's an opportunity for deeper levels of healing.

And we are very happy to help in that process if you want to reach out to me or Keith or both of us.

Because triggers to me are an opportunity for more freedom.

Yeah.

They're hard and people want to avoid triggers, but yeah, they're inevitable.

A trigger can be a very good early warning system of the body.

Exactly.

For sure.

Well, as we begin, I'm not sure how this episode is exactly going to play out.

I know that it's, it is the story of surgeries.

There's so much to that.

But in our last episode, we finished with your initial recovery.

So one of the, well, I'll start here.

One of the perks, this is coming to mind, one of the perks I'll say of what has happened in this surgery journey is something that was very unexpected.

That's been very fruitful.

And that is as Megan, again, in her last, in the last episode, she shared that they sent, they sent her home as soon as she was out of the drugs and out of recovery.

They sent her home after the mastectomy because of COVID.

And so at home, they sent us with the pills and the things that you need, but they said, you're going to need to get up, was it two to three times a day to walk two to three times a day, five to 10 minute walk to help purge the anesthesia.

That's right.

Yeah.

Anesthesia from the system and do that.

Well, it's Texas and it's hot.

And our street in Wimberley runs East West, which means all of this sun of the entire day goes up and down our street with no cover, no shade.

And then our, we have a wonderful yard and the yard, the center of the yard is open and is just grass like any other yard, but the perimeter has a lot of oak and cedar trees.

And so as Megan knew she had to get up and walk, she wanted to stay cool.

So she got up and walked and she would walk the perimeter of the yard.

And it was probably maybe it was the first day or the second day you did it.

Pretty close.

Yeah.

You saw a vision for our yard really quickly.

Okay.

It was, I can't remember that part.

So a lot of you guys know I'm a creative and a visionary.

And so I do a lot of photography and art, primarily photography, but the creative in me is constantly seeing things that don't yet exist.

It's also part of my prophetic nature and the way guys made me.

So I'm just loving on my wife, trying to take care of her by walking her through the shade and she's kind of hunched over because of the pain.

And we walked this brim and then I see why we're walking for the shade and we walk it together.

And I think, I think it was the Holy Spirit honestly just hit me and I was like, there's a trail here.

There's a prayer.

There's a healing prayer trail here.

And so I don't know when I started doing it, but almost right away I'm kind of a man of faith.

You mowed it down.

I probably didn't.

I probably had the idea and started it without thinking it all the way through that happens.

But yeah, I did.

I started off with the loppers into the tree loppers and I cut off all of the, the major limbs that I could tell were in your way with the kind of path that you chose.

And we walked it one more time, I think.

And I kind of just tested it with you to see what else might be helpful to knock down.

And then I took the lawn mower and we have a very rocky yard.

So I think I busted up my blade or it's a three blade mower.

Anyway, I dropped the mower blade all the way to the ground and basically just cut through the wooded parts of the yard.

There's no grass there is more like underbrush is probably a better way to say it and just kind of plowed this path and I've continued to work on it and we'll, we'll share more of that story later.

But, but that's how the recovery started.

Right.

So here's the goodness of God in the midst of the pain and the initial trauma of surgery of day one, being home, thrust into this environment that we didn't want.

The Lord was already visioning new things.

Yeah.

This prayer trail was his idea.

It came up out of the ground and the spirit of God led me to it.

And so that was a beautiful part of that beginning.

But what do you remember? 

I mean, that's kind of the Keith Peeler side of that first stages of healing.

We were kind of at the, your back from surgery, your walk a little bit, Stephanie Rand, you're there.

They've been taking care of us.

What's going on? 

Just I'm thinking about people who are listening and maybe think about how would I deal with this? 

Or maybe you're dealing with a surgery or a disease of some kind.

What was going on? 

Cause you were stuck.

Yeah.

So how did you deal with that? 

Like what was going on inside of you in those initial first days outside of the wonderful prayer trail that it was emerging.

That was a plus.

My healing trail.

It was, it was heavy, right? 

Yeah.

And I was pretty out of it, but I think of all the surgeries, the mastectomy was probably the hardest.

I disagree, but that's okay.

We have different procedures.

Maybe I don't remember it.

I was also on medication, but the doctor likened it to an amputation.

That's true.

It's something that's being taken from you that you don't want taken from you.

And so I think there was a lot of fear of trusting the process because your body's never experienced this kind of drama, this trauma.

And then you have these pains or these like moments and you're just like, is this normal? And there's a lot of fear.

I had people that had had mastectomies that were speaking to me and I could ask them questions.

And that really helped me feel validated for what I was experiencing.

So I think that's a number one thing that I felt was fear, but also thankfulness for our bedroom and having this deck off of our bedroom because I could sit outside on our porch and then the parameter of the yard that I walk.

So between those two things, I felt like the Lord was giving me little pieces of comfort in the midst of a lot of discomfort.

And I think the other area that was hard was the mutilation of my body.

And you just talked about this.

Yeah, it was it was hard.

It was hard for me to let you see me like that.

It was hard to know how this was going to get any better.

Yeah.

When you come out of a mastectomy, if you're going to have reconstruction of any kind, they put an expander in you that allows for space to be held for the reconstruction.

And it's pretty gnarly.

And so just not knowing, I mean, I tried to do all the research that I could to prepare myself and I still wasn't prepared.

So I think that part, the body image stuff was really hard.

Yeah.

Yeah, there's no doubt.

And so much of it was a blur.

And so much of it is so significant and stands out.

It's hard to remember all of the variety of emotions that happen in that space.

I mean, there's shock.

I mean, all the stages of grief, you cyclically or popcorn-like, you go through all those different stages at different times.

And just basic daily functions.

Fortunately, we're very lucky in that we had the capacity of a home to return to.

We had the capacity of jobs that were forgiving and helpful.

Gave a space to do what we needed to do to take care of our family for the most part.

And we had to still get things done here and there, but we had a lot of blessings around that that I think some folks, or a lot of folks maybe even don't get to have.

Yeah.

But I disagree with you on the hardest surgery because I watched the recovery from just, you know, it was a different level.

So the first surgery was the mastectomy.

And then the second surgery was reconstruction.

And do you want to explain kind of what they had to do to your body in order to reconstruct and to do what was required for that? 

So it's a special procedure called a deep flap procedure.

And they basically take the fat from your body and create a breast.

So it's natural and not an implant of anything.

Right.

And so when they do that, they have to make sure that the blood supply stays there.

Otherwise your body's rejecting the transplant, really.

Yeah.

And so I had four days in the hospital alone without you.

Well, yeah.

And to explain it, I mean, she had a really great plastic surgeon.

And, uh, I mean, this, this is going to sound rough, but this is what the doctor said.

She said, well, you didn't ask for a cancer, but at least you get a tummy tuck in the boob job out of it.

An upgrade.

Yeah.

And so that was her way of bringing some humor to it, but I didn't, like, I didn't understand.

I remember being in the first surgery, like somehow we got through and you know, it's kind of like mind numbing and the nurses were great and helped us.

And then we go for the second surgery.

And what I remember very vividly, this is one of those things was they had explained the surgery to me ahead of time.

I knew what was going to happen, but then she came in and closed the door and she's in the gown.

And then they drew on Megan's body with the marker where they were going to cut.

And essentially what was is they recreated the right breast where the cancer was, but that meant also a reduction in the left breast, which so it was a double surgery.

But then essentially from here to here, hip to hip.

And they drew this line here and then down below the belly button and then up around it, like this big kind of sunset drawing and like, okay, this is the area that we're going to cut.

And I was like, they're going to gut my wife like a pig.

And it like the, this, again, any kind of surgery stuff like this that you go through, there's, they did a great job explaining it, but then, and then the reality of what's actually going to happen happens and you're just, you can't prepare for that.

It just, it just is, you have to just react.

And, uh, so we're talking very significant surge.

I mean, you know, they, they cut that part out and then they take this part of the skin and they pull it all the way down and then you're hunched over, but like, that was my shock.

And then I was, I didn't tell you at the time, but I was secretly at the time, thankful that I couldn't, because of COVID, I couldn't be with you in the hospital.

I wanted to be with you, but the doctors told me you're going to be drugged for four days straight.

Right.

So, I mean, do you even have any memories of the hospital? Not really.

I do.

You know why? 

Cause I was calling you.

Constantly video calls, messages.

Yeah.

And I will not go into the details.

I would just simply say, I am very thankful that you don't remember.

Yeah.

I'm very thankful.

And I'm thankful that because of COVID, I had my own bed to sleep in because I could do nothing for you.

Yeah.

I mean, basically was it every hour they were checking you? 

Every hour they would ultrasound my breasts to make sure that the blood supply was viable.

So I was never left alone, really, because there's always someone coming in, but it was four days of that.

So when I came home, I was hunched over for quite a while while my incision on my stomach healed and I couldn't walk upright.

So it was, that part was really hard because I was been over for a long time.

It gave me a lot of compassion for people that have issues where they can't stand straight because you're looking down at the ground and it's really depressing and frustrating and painful.

Yeah.

So.

And I think in that place, like I was exhausted from not being able to do anything.

I mean, I was sleeping at least a little bit at home, but just anticipating everything that was going to go out was just, it was just, it was hard.

Yeah.

Lots of drains.

Yeah.

Lots of having to wait and be patient about the healing.

Most of my wounds, they healed from the outside end, but there were several places where it was healing on the inside out.

And that just meant that there was a lot more wound care and it took a lot longer.

And honestly, to trust the process of wound care is very difficult because everything you have to do is counterintuitive to what they're telling you to do.

You're just like, no, this doesn't make any sense.

But it worked.

Yeah.

And so the Lord gave me a lot of teachable moments, I guess about what it means to trust the process and how the Lord likes to do regular wound care on our hearts and on our experiences and our journeys.

And he does that to help refine us and shape us and grow us.

Yeah.

The idea, when you talk about it being the inside out, and I mean, that's, that's what we're talking about with the whole idea of the inner healing prayer is we said this in the last episode, it's the inner man.

So it's how, how are the things inside of us being, how is it healing from the inside out? 

Are we putting those things away? 

Shoving them down.

Are we shoving them down? 

Are we feeling some and the others? 

Are we delusional? 

Are we numbing out? 

Are we numbing out? 

Like all these things are, they're, they're different ways that the body and the mind and all that react to these things.

But, but it really was a brutal, but pruning journey.

Part of my journey in that particular surgery when she was home was the fears around what changes would happen to your body.

Again, not being too graphic, but one of, one of the issues in the surgery is, and I'm going to speak plainly here.

So just heads up, this is a PG 13 or maybe a little higher.

They did what they do is called nipple replacement and they move them.

But what that means is the sensation there can potentially go away completely.

And so we had to talk about a lot of potential intimacy issues in the beginning of what that would mean.

So the fears of what, what does this mean? 

I mean, and not just selfishly for me, but for her and how do we share intimacy? 

If that's going to be an issue, is it going to be an issue? 

Does she going to want me to ever touch her again? 

Is she going to never want me to touch her again? 

Is she going to, am I going to want to touch her again? 

What all of those confusing questions are in the middle of that.

And you have this physical just healing process to go through.

So there's confusion, there's fear, there's, you know, the calm of, of thankfulness for these things that are happening in the journey.

And then I had to discover some things for me.

And, and one of them was about my own creativity and how I work.

Because there was a part of that time when we were talking about this where I was so beat up and tired.

I was trying to maintain my job, you know, and trying to build towards Everfree.

And the kids.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I have to mention that all, I mean, all, yeah.

Caretaker kids, trauma, still trying to help the kids assimilate to a new town where they don't know anybody because it's COVID and they haven't been able to go to school.

And this prayer trail became a healing place for me as well as you.

And so I would noodle in the yard, right? 

And at one point they were about three or four days in a row where I had been out there for three or four or five hours, you know, broken up in between for meds and feeding and stuff.

And I had this moment and I was like, Oh my gosh.

If I mean, again, we live on financial support by donors.

Like if my donors knew that I was out here, you know, messing around in the yard for four hours a day, they'd never support this ministry.

I need to get back to my job.

Right.

Hmm.

Unfortunately, again, this is why we encourage everyone to seek wise counsel.

A big sister in the faith has a husband who is a strategist.

And I called her and she and I share ministry stuff together and she was very helpful.

And she said, all right, Keith, let me ask you this question.

What are you doing when you're out there moving those logs around when you're, when you're picking the rocks up and you're tending the trail and you're trimming the limbs? 

Like what's going on in your mind? 

That's what I'm thinking about this kind of working this out.

She goes, yeah, so you mean you're working? 

I was like, what? 

She goes, it sounds to me, Keith, like when you're on the trail, cultivating the space, it sounds to me like you're actually getting your best work done.

And I, and she said, you know, my husband's a strategist and he'll spend inordinate amounts of time thinking all the things through envisioning out, you know, spend three to four to five hours thinking and noodling on ideas for a 15 minute meeting.

And it just, it was this epiphany that my work needed to look different.

And the Lord was using the trauma of this scenario to debilitate me and my energy to put me in.

And what's really interesting is one of the early visions I had when we were on the land, we were praying on the porch before the surgeries.

And I heard a couple of things, but one of the main things I heard the Lord say to me is tend the land.

And I knew he met the area, but, but the initial picture I got was the yard and I didn't know what that meant.

And it wasn't until I actually was a month or two after the surgery where the Lord reminded me of that.

So that was, I mean, like unexpected, another unexpected gift in the journey, right? Yeah.

Okay.

So now you're healed up for the most part.

It took some time.

I forget how long that was.

It was hard.

You're able to walk erect after several weeks.

No physical therapy necessarily required, but lots of tender care and hurt.

And no chemotherapy for radiation.

Right.

Good, good detail.

They got the cancer when they did the mastectomy and it wasn't in my lymph nodes.

So the only treatment I have is I'm on a medication that blocks my hormones because it was a, it was a hormone positive breast cancer.

So they don't want me to have hormones, which has been interesting for a journey because that led you to the next surgery, surgery and last surgery was my total hysterectomy and overrectomy and overrectomy.

So they basically took it all, all my womenly parts out.

And it was, that part was really emotional for me because I'm finished having children, but there's something about taking these parts of me that feel like almost like a violation of my body in a different way.

Not because I needed to use them for anything, but I just, your womanhood.

Yeah.

And so, I mean, I'm sitting there.

I'm like, I really have to do the surgery, right? 

Like the surgery is necessary, right? Like I kept needing the reassurance that there was a reason why I was doing this.

And there was because those are parts of my body that were producing hormones and they needed to be taken and women do so much to put hormones back in their body and menopause.

And I cannot put hormones back in my body and was forced into instant menopause at 46.

So it's been a trying season of the surgery really wasn't that hard for me compared to the others, but what it's done to my body physically.

And I think what I learned through this year journey is that the Lord was calling me to become aware of my mind, body, soul, and spirit, and to become healthy and strong, not necessarily skinny, which is a real struggle for most women.

It's an important part of what we need to talk about.

Yeah.

And so he was teaching us as a family, Keith and I as a couple, how we needed to pursue our health and to become strong.

Yeah.

And that's that goes to every area of our life.

Mind, body, soul, spirit, all of it needed attention in regards to how to do it.

And I feel like the Lord really provided that for us.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And in that journey, and this is going to be another podcast for another time.

It's a whole series of podcasts, actually.

Because in the journey of this, I knew that my physical health had deteriorated.

I was eating and drinking more on the kind of regular, not overindulging, but just kind of pat, I was satisfying myself with extras in the food category.

Oh, I can have a few more of those because I'm, you know, I'm in pain.

So I'm going to satisfy my urges.

And I started going to a CrossFit gym that I swear I never do CrossFit, but found my way there.

And again, that'll, there's some minutes that came out of that.

We'll, we'll highlight that new podcast.

It's a different flavor.

It's a, it's more of a men's ministry thing that's emerged in Wimbledon.

But, but in that place of health, I finally started feeling strong in my body and not always skinny either, but strong.

And, and working towards better, regular health, not at least, I think you and I kind of felt this, I mean, it's different between men and women.

I was never one to die it, but I have been an all or nothing kind of guy.

And I felt like to get healthy, I had to do it all, or I could do nothing.

Yeah.

And I think this journey for me helped me see that it wasn't about doing all or nothing.

It was more about acknowledging that my physical health was something that God cared about.

Yeah.

And, and that I could do something about it, but I didn't have to do, I didn't have to cut out everything, but I needed to cut out some things and reduce other things and then add to those things, some physical health and a way of taking care of my body.

Because it is the temple, the Holy Spirit.

It's a, that's a very real part of the scriptures, but, but also if you don't take care of your body, you get sick.

Now there's nothing that Megan was doing that gave her cancer.

It just happened.

But in order to take care of herself afterward.

And part of the beauty of that journey too was finding a great coach to help you close friends and dear friends.

Yeah.

Um, and that's been a really wonderful part.

I think it's interesting too.

I think it's fun to tell the story about what you under sedation asked your, um, what doctor was it that I know the name of the doctor, what kind of doctor was it? 

It was your gynecological surgeon.

Oh, yeah.

Don't say his name, but I'm just saying, yeah, what you did.

My OBGYN he did my hysterectomy and I was like, Hey, you're already.

So here's the thing.

So one of the, one of the things that can happen with this, the, um, deep flap surgery is that on the sides here where the skin comes back together, it can develop what they call these dog flaps.

So there's two little dog ears that, that Megan was going to have to go back to the plastic surgeon to fix.

Right.

Yeah.

And so I'm talking to my doctor and I said, you know, you already have me under, you're already taking my surgeon, right? 

You're a surgeon.

Could you please take these off? 

Cause otherwise I'm going to have to go in for another reconstruction.

And he got so excited.

He was like, I absolutely can do that.

Remember the last episode I told you, she's very charismatic.

She sold this doctor on the spot to do a surgery that she wasn't going to have to pay for.

And he did a great job and he was so proud of himself cause he always did hysterectomy.

So he was very, I mean, he literally wanted to take a picture to show his daughter cause she was a surgeon too.

It was really funny for him to be that proud of.

Well, but it was a gift for us too.

Cause we don't have insurance.

We don't have traditional insurance, right? 

As missionaries, we have a, it's, I won't say the name, but, um, it's a health share.

It's a Christian health share organization.

Uh, and they've been fantastic, but, um, in order, we have to negotiate our own prices with doctors and we have to negotiate payments.

And a lot of times doctors won't do a surgery without an upfront payment.

And, and the organization that we participate with, um, in some certain circumstances, they can help you find resources.

But that meant we had to put a lot of surgeries on the credit card.

So, I mean, in the last 12 months, I put $125,000 on a credit card back and forth to pay for this.

And then they pay us back, but then they didn't pay for the interest fees in the, in the in between.

So like for me, as the guy who's taking care of the bills, I'm like, this is a huge gift.

One, she doesn't have to be under anesthesia again.

And two, I don't have to negotiate another anesthesiologist, another surgery center and another doctor to deal with the copays and the up from not the copays, but the like paying them cash upfront.

And so for me, it was my wife is a great salesman.

And she got that doctor and the recovery for the hysterectomy was a cakewalk compared to those two areas that he sewed up.

I was like, Oh, that made it harder to recover.

It did.

But it was, it was a cakewalk compared to the other surgeries.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So, okay.

So now here we are.

Okay.

It is, um, we're in, uh, what are we May now? 

No, June.

We're in June.

Just turned June.

Yeah.

June.

Second already.

June 2nd of 2022.

So your last surgery was somewhere in the neighborhood of October, November of 20.

Um, so we've had a followup from the surgery.

You've had a clean bill of health and your followup, uh, mammogram, your year, year and a half now from the surgeries.

People will ask us, how are you now? 

So in your body, this is the surgery episode.

This is the medical episode.

What would you say now looking back over start to finish your sweet.

We are still healing.

Yeah.

There's stuff that we're still learning.

Right.

But what would you say now? 

Like where are you at now in the, maybe, maybe there's more to say about the feeling strong and how the, how the lack of hormones has affected your body and your ability to lose weight, um, how you've been affected by other things.

Like what would you say now as the critical mass of surgeries are over, you don't have cancer anymore.

Right.

So now what I think it's, it's dealing with the, the lie that says that once you've had cancer, your possibility of getting it again is pretty high.

And I have women around me who have had breast cancer who have had a recurrence and that's, that's a really hard thing to recognize and, and to not live in fear of.

Um, I have a mammogram, a mammogram scheduled, uh, actually in a couple of weeks to follow up and more blood work to be done.

I have to do it every six months and every six months I'm just like, okay, I could either partner with fear and let fear just sabotage me when I go do this, or I can partner with Jesus and say, take the results and do with it what you're going to do.

Cause I know you're a healer.

Because I want to pause you there.

Yeah.

Because sometimes when we talk about this, people want to ask you and they're, they don't, they're not here.

So I'm going to stop you and ask you, okay.

Yeah.

You say that, but how, how do you do that? 

I can acknowledge hearing you, I know what you're talking about, but like, I could choose this way of thinking or this way of thinking.

How do you do that? 

So I have a motto, a thing that I live by that says when in doubt, cast it out.

And it's, it's real.

I mean, I'm like, I don't know if this is the enemy or if this is just Megan having a bad day.

And so I will say, Lord, you have given me my emotions.

You have blessed me to feel, and you know that I'm scared, but I need you to tell me, is this a spirit of fear that's attaching to that emotion?

Or is this just you wanting to attend to my heart?

And so I separate the two.

And I said, so if this is a spirit of fear, attaching to my emotions, I send you back to the foot of the cross where you belong.

I'm not partnering with you.

And I want to partner with what Jesus wants to do with this day and with the results.

So that's my way of doing my own housekeeping and cleansing over my heart and my body as I step into difficult situations.

Right.

And so, you know, in another podcast in season one, you know, our kind of initial season of podcasts, it was, it was our story of how ever we started.

It was the basics of interhealing and deliverance.

How do you pray for your kids or what is interhealing and deliverance? 

And so we have, you know, it was a, it was a good season of just kind of getting our feet wet with a podcast.

This season two is less teaching more story modeling with what these principles mean in our life.

And so what we want to encourage you to do is as you continue in your own healing journey with the Lord, whether it's a cancer journey or just your own emotional health from a trauma of some kind is the inner work is, is there are the, just the natural human emotions that happen when you're feeling these things, God gave you feelings for a reason.

And so expressing those feelings, anger, fear, hatred, joy, Jubilee, ecstatic, you know, all the fear, like there's a humanness that's to that, but, but we've taught this in many places, but the enemy manifests by distorting or attaching to or becoming even those emotions or taking on that.

So there's fear, but as you just said, you have human fear, but if I give way in some way to allow the enemy to hold that fear, if that fear becomes big, the enemy might go, Oh, I'm going to grab that and I'm going to turn the volume up on that fear.

And that's when the spirit of fear adds to the, the, the weight, if you will, of the, what is a normal fear.

Right.

And, and what I've wrestled with and what we've wrestled with in teaching is there's a lot of scriptures say fear not, you know, do not be anxious for tomorrow.

And today has enough troubles of its own.

I think I have oversimplified those verses to say that if I'm trusting the Lord, that I won't feel fear.

If I'm trusting the Lord, I won't feel anxiety.

If I'm trusting the Lord, I won't feel depression or sorrow, or sorrow.

The joy of the Lord is our strength.

There is no like bubbling joy in me watching you go to surgery or even thinking about surgeries now.

So, so there's a difference then between allowing yourself to have the emotion of fear and the emotion of anxiety without condemning yourself for doing so.

That's right.

And I think that's a gateway for the enemy actually to use these feelings against us.

Yes.

If, if I, those verses point me to my true north, which is Jesus, I'm going to decide to follow him with these things.

I'm going to shoot, but I also have to do the releasing and the work of it while also experiencing his grace, which is a gift that I can't work for.

Yeah.

That's exactly right.

Right.

So we have this massaging of we've received his presence freely, but we have to work at uncovering within the stuff that still needs his attention.

Yeah.

And so for me, that's the heartbeat of a lot of the tension and inner healing ministry is there were oftentimes people will come to us and hope to find that the reason that they're stuck is because of a spiritual issue, not an emotional one.

And, and it's almost like they hope that we have a silver bullet prayer to deal with that spirit of fear.

And once the spirit of fear is gone, it's like it's gone forever.

The problem is when we continue to open ourselves back up in deep fear, then that's that spirit of fear can't come back.

The good news is because we do have authority in the name of Jesus, we can send that.

So when in doubt, cast it out.

It's, it's a spiritual brushing of your teeth.

Spiritual hygiene is exactly what I was thinking.

Yeah.

It's a daily thing.

It's a daily thing.

And the reason that you have to brush your teeth every day is because you keep eating.

The reason you have to pray for yourself and sometimes even pray for deliverance over the same issue repeatedly is because you keep living.

You keep experiencing something that triggers your fear.

And what you have to discern in the journey of, of your own inner healing is, is this the fear of cancer coming back that I'm feeling? 

Is this fear of cancer coming back? 

Is there a previous event in my life where fear hasn't been, hasn't been dealt with? Do I need prayer in that place of my, my journey of fear?

Where is the fear coming from? 

Yeah.

And then because of that listening prayer, that's such a crucial part of the inner healing process.

Holy spirit.

Would you show me where's this coming from? 

Yeah, you're getting to the root of the issue.

And sometimes it takes me back to when I was a little kid, you know, I don't know.

It's just an area that needed a little bit more attention.

And I'm reacting because I'm being triggered from past experiences.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I think it's been incredible as your husband to watch you, right? 

Like I loved you a lot before all this a lot, but it's been a whole different journey for me to see you become more of yourself as you've lost parts of yourself physically.

Yeah.

The surgery journey has been interesting.

You know, husbands out there or men out there who have, have women in their lives that are going through menopause.

It is, it is not been without a lot of intentional work on our part as a couple to deal with the reality that she no longer has hormones in her body.

Um, there are certain things about her now.

I just have to ignore.

Like the temperature changes.

Yeah.

Constant.

I will be freezing and then burning up in a matter of minutes.

I'm a tactile guy.

I'm an affectionate guy.

I always want my hand on my wife's leg and driving the car.

And apparently I radiate heat.

I'm like iron man on the inside or something.

Yeah.

And so there are times when we're just, you know, sitting there, it's been snuggling and she just shoots off the couch.

What? 

You're too hot.

Leave me alone.

Okay.

Yeah.

And, and I think one of the interesting things is we've had to learn and process by talking, but then also by praying and asking Lord to show us in that place of intimacy and vulnerability is we've had to learn how to not take things personally.

Yeah.

Right.

So, um, I'll share this as part of my journey.

So in, in my own fatigue, I was feeling, I thought I was just depressed or, or frustrated and my energy was really low and I started working out and my energy was still really low.

And so I went to the doctor and I, I found out, you know, I was in the, my libido was dropping and I wasn't telling my wife this cause it just, I wasn't at the time.

But then I finally kind of shared it through my libido is dropping and I need to check my testosterone and I started doing testosterone replacement therapy.

Um, but Megan in that, like, because the chemical part of me was dropping and the libido was dropping, she took that part personally.

And then we had to process some of that together as a couple and be vulnerable about it and honest about it.

And then now in the same way, um, Megan's body has changed significantly and it is affected what, uh, what intimacy looks like.

I'll say it that way.

Um, how she can be cared for and touched and what, what, um, how her body reacts to my touch is very, very different.

And, and so the ways that I knew how to touch her in the past to bring us connection and to, and to share in our intimacy don't exist anymore in the same way.

And so I had to learn also how to not take that personally.

Um, when the bodies are, when bodies change in this way, uh, I think it would be very easy for couples to shut down and not talk about this.

Um, we're talking about this on a podcast because we're crazy exposed.

But again, we talked about this in episode one of season two, we're just vulnerable people.

I mean, we want, we want people to talk because one of the core things, and we're currently working on a series to teach about this, but one of the core things we've learned in our prayer ministry for others is that a lot of couples don't know how to pray together.

Um, because a lot of couples don't know how to be intimate.

And I don't mean physically, I mean emotionally and certain, you know, men have certain characteristics, positive and negative about their ability to share vulnerable things.

Um, women have a greater capacity to have emotions and share them with other women, but both men and women struggle with intimacy and marriage and vulnerability in marriage.

And so, what would you say as we've talked about some of those things, uh, physical intimacy and how that's related? 

Like how, what would you want to talk to our followers about and the physical intimacy piece or the, like, what does that trigger in you that you would think would be helpful for this part of the conversation? 

I think not to be, uh, discouraged or defeated by the new normal.

Um, having to communicate and talk through things multiple times.

I think I've said it five times and he's like, Oh, that really hit home this time.

Or I didn't believe you.

Like you would say something and I was like, I don't know.

Cause that conflicts with how, yeah, it was just hard to, it's hard to, when something, this radical changes in a marriage, it's hard to accept it.

Well, and it's also hard to have to revisit it over and over and you're like, well, I've already said it.

I don't need to keep doing this, but we have had to.

And I find it really encouraging that we can keep going after it hard, the hard things in communication and that it really does lead us to a deeper level of intimacy.

And so the heart is worth it, even though it doesn't feel like it in the midst of the conversation.

And especially if you've had to say the same thing over and over in a different way.

Um, I heard somebody say recently, you know, everybody wants to become mature, but not everybody's willing to go through what it takes to become mature.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Because it's easier to just walk away from the hard conversations.

And, you know, I, I can't feel barely anything from my chest to my weight, to my stomach.

Like there's very little feeling that I have there.

And so it's, it's, it's a very strange, confusing situation for me.

And then lacking hormones causes all kinds of other issues.

So we're having to talk that out.

And I hope that by you listening to this podcast, that you guys will be encouraged to talk it out with whoever is in your life.

Y'all, you met y'all.

Y'all, y'all, you guys.

Yeah, we're from Texas.

So I just, I know, I know the power of communication and how when you really expose the lies and you expose the insecurities that fruit will come from it.

And it has for us in our relationship for sure.

So yeah, because there's no more vulnerable place than an operating table.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And, you know, as Megan experienced it on the table and I experienced it waiting for in a room, neither one of us in that point, neither one of us have any control right over what happens to your body.

Yeah.

And that, that weight will wear on you.

I would say goodbye knowing that she was in good hands, but not knowing what I was going to get when you came out.

Yeah.

Every time.

All for three surgeries.

So for two years between surgeries and recovery, I've had to wait and not know what I'm getting in my wife that I've been married to for 17 years.

Almost 18.

Come up real quick.

So we just, we hope that in the sense of walking through these things again, our platform with Everfree is about inner healing and deliverance ministry.

And that is again, I feel like I'm beating a dead horse, but I got to say it.

It's the inner man journey.

And sometimes when we do trainings and we do, we share the tools that we have developed or we share the concepts about inner healing, sometimes people want it to just be a solution to a problem.

And what we want to communicate to you is the tools that God has given us in scripture about becoming the man or woman of God that you are made to be.

Those are, those are not, I hate this, you know, if you say, if, if, if the Bible is the answer, then what was the question? 

I've seen the bubble stickers or something like, you know, the Bible is the answer, you know, and then I said the counter to is like, if the Bible is the answer, what was the question? 

The Bible, the Bible is our guide.

It is not our answer.

Jesus is the answer.

It's not a solution.

Jesus is in a solution.

He's our Lord.

And for everything.

And the challenge that I need to bring to you listening today is, are you seeking Jesus to fix something or are you seeking Jesus to become his? 

And there's a very significant difference in what that means.

And I have come to the prayer table, so to speak, seeking Jesus to find a solution.

I very rarely find a solution, but I do find a next step.

The scripture says, thy word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path.

If you've ever used a lantern or a light on a path like that, it is not, it is not a beam that gives you 10, a thousand feet down the road.

It is a light unto the path.

It is like one step at a time.

And what I love about scripture is the beauty of the Psalms, the wisdom of the Proverbs, the gospels, the storytelling of Jesus, all the prophetic words that came through the Old Testament and the fulfillment of that in Christ and the stories of Paul and the journeys that he had, because none of those things that we point to in scripture are solutions.

Right.

They are invitations to this question.

And this is what the Lord has says to me all the time.

Keith, are you going to trust me or not? 

It's going to be better than you.

Yeah.

Still waiting on what that looks like.

We see glimpses of it.

It's better than it was.

Yeah.

But when I think better than you, I don't know it, but in that journey, I mean, all along the way, the devastation, the mutilation, the amputation, frustration, he kept whispering, it's going to be better than you think.

Which the part of thinking is something that we can't imagine how he thinks.

And I had a picture of the Lord blanketed me with a blanket of peace during these surgeries.

And he says, I want to give you a piece that surpasses all understanding.

And I was like, well, how are you going to do that, Lord? 

And he said, put your understanding aside.

Like let me bypass your understanding in your mind and what you think you know about peace and let me get past that.

And I had to visualize doing that, like almost like an exchange.

Fine.

I'll give you my understanding.

Now do I get your peace? 

And it was a constant tug of war.

Yeah.

Another thing that was really comforting for me is the Psalms and the worship of the Psalms over me.

And Shane and Shane is a music group that actually plays the Psalms through music.

And when I was in the hospital, that was the only album I wanted to listen to.

And then you were impacted by, There's Another in the Fire, which is another song that they wrote.

No, they didn't write that song.

Oh, they didn't.

No, it was a different artist.

Oh, got it.

Yeah, it was a different artist.

But the Psalms, I mean, we've listened to Shane and Shane for years.

Yeah.

Their Texas group and their national, obviously, or international now.

But, and then.

And then we went to, yeah, we went to a wedding right outside of our Wimberly and we get there and Keith goes, babe, I think that's one of the Shane's and Shane and Shane.

I had heard that these guys, Shane Barnett, I think owns a facility in Dripping Springs.

And the wedding was in Dripping Springs.

And I had this literally just in a prayer appointment with a guy in Texas Tech who was related to them somehow.

And so I was thinking about them and thinking about the reality of that.

And we get to this quaint little wedding.

It was beautiful.

And we're at this facility and see this guy kind of noodling on the sound system and he's kind of adjusting things.

And they start singing with what I think is maybe his wife.

I couldn't really tell.

I didn't know them.

And I'm like, that guy sings really well.

And then I kind of have to start like, this new guy I met says that one of the Shane's owns a joint down here.

I'm like, some like, I mean, I listened to them, but I'm like one of these video guys.

I don't know who artists are.

So I figured I was like, Shane, Bernard, he's singing at the wedding.

He's running the sound.

He's doing it.

I mean, he's like, what are the odds that we're at this wedding and this music was so impactful for us.

So well, like what the peelers do, what'd we do about that, dear? 

Well, we had to tell him.

So during the reception, we just went up to him and said that his album was used in a powerful way over our healing journey.

And he was so touched.

We were touched.

He was, it was very kind.

Yeah.

He's a great guy.

A special moment of just thankfulness.

So all that to say is worship can be such a powerful tool in healing and our healing journey.

And it definitely was for us.

Yeah.

Well, friends, that's going to bring us to the end of episode three, the surgery journey.

Again, as we've said before, if you want to hear more or have questions or thoughts or need some encouragement, it's Megan@everfree.us and Keith@everfree.us.

And we're looking forward to continuing the storytelling and encouraging.

Hopefully you're being encouraged to lay your burdens down before the Lord.

Hopefully you're being encouraged to go deeper in your walk with him and to realize just the real beauty of vulnerability and everything about inner healing is about vulnerability.

We are so blessed when we get to spend time with people who come to us for prayer because they are really, they're opening up their hearts and they're telling their deepest, darkest stories.

They're going through their cancer story, their abuse story.

They're filling the blank story and they're, they're coming out with it and that's, it's an act of deep vulnerability.

Yeah.

So friends, as you go from this episode today, we encourage you to be honest and vulnerable about whatever it is that's going on in your world, in your marriage, in your relationships, in your family.

You may not always get the results that you want, but the vulnerability and the path of that vulnerability leads you into more freedom because you've done your part in reconciliation, both with the father and with others.

So until next time, as we'll wrap it up the episode today, we'll see you later.

Bye-bye.

Thanks for listening to the podcast today.

You can find this at www.everfree.us.

And if you want to support this ministry or podcast, click that donate button in the upper right-hand corner.

We'll see you next time.