Healing Prayer for Identity and Body Image Issues Featuring Keith and Megan Peeler, Part 2/2 [Podcast Transcript]

Title: Healing Prayer for Identity and Body Image Issues Featuring Keith and Megan Peeler Part 2/2

Podcast Date: October 8, 2024

Listen Here: 

Description

Heather continues her deep dive into the realm of spiritual warfare with guests Keith and Megan Peeler of Everfree. They explore the profound realities of spiritual oppression, particularly relating to body image and identity issues. Heather emphasizes this isn't about fear, but about empowering truth—through Jesus, that we have authority over these spiritual challenges.

Megan Peeler shares personal revelations and the dangers of disassociating from our bodies, a coping mechanism often encouraged by cultural conditioning. Keith Peeler highlights the importance of identity and how the enemy aims to undermine it by sowing lies that weaken our ability to fulfill God-given assignments.

The episode also tackles the essence of true identity and our spiritual authority as co-heirs with Christ. Megan reflects on discovering her authority in spiritual warfare, which transformed how she confronts negative thoughts. Heather and the Peelers underscore that intimacy with God isn't just theoretical; it's an experiential journey that reshapes our identity in Him.

Expect to dive into a discussion on the profound impact of identity attacks in spiritual warfare, how experiences shape our understanding of God, and ways to invite Jesus into our healing process.

For more information on how healing prayer works visit Megan and Keith Peeler's website at EverFreePrayer.org

Megan's new ministry Everfree Her is coming in January!

Learn more about Compared to Who? by visiting: https://www.improvebodyimage.com

Interested in healing prayer for your body image issues? Reach out to Heather at: [email protected]

Heather Creekmore [00:00:04]:

Hey, friend, Heather Creekmore here. I'm glad you're listening to the compared to who podcast today. Today's episode is a part 2 of an interview I did with my friends, Keith and Megan Peeler around spiritual warfare and praying for healing from spiritual oppression around body image and identity issues. Y'all, this is real stuff, and it's a lot real, more real, shall I say, than a lot of us maybe think about or give it credit for. And it's not supposed to be scary or intimidating or anything like that. Right? We've conquered everything as in the spiritual realm through Jesus alone. But friends, it's real. And so I hope you'll listen to today's episode and learn and be encouraged.

Heather Creekmore [00:00:48]:

And if you need help on this front, reach out. Heather at compared to you dot me. We've got some great resources for you. Now let's get to today’s show. Welcome to Compare To Who, the podcast to help you make peace with your body so you can savor God's rest and feel his love. If you're tired of fighting body image the world's way, Compare To You is the show for you. You've likely heard lots of talk about loving your body, but my goal is different. Striving to fall in love with stretch marks and cellulite is a little silly to me.

Heather Creekmore [00:01:19]:

Instead, I want to encourage you and remind you with the truth of scripture that you are seen, you are known, and you are loved no matter what your size or shape. Here, the pressure is off. If you're looking for real talk, biblical encouragement, and regular reminders that God loves you and you're not alone, you've come to the right place. I hope you enjoy today's show, and, hey, tell a friend about it.

Megan Peeler [00:01:45]:

And, you know, the other thing that some women might do is curse their bodies. My body has failed me, so I am angry at it. Yeah. Or disconnect from their body. Like, I would say things like this thing this thing. Like, I would literally address my body like it wasn't my own.

Heather Creekmore [00:02:05]:

Right.

Megan Peeler [00:02:05]:

And my dear friend called me out on it. She knows she's you know, you just disassociated from your body. Right? I'm like, oh my goodness. I'm in the business of healing and deliverance, and I'm doing exactly what I teach people not to do. And so it I mean, this was not that long ago.

Megan Peeler [00:02:23]:

So he's continually bringing me back into full alignment. With my mind, my body, my soul, and my spirit. And all of those areas of our lives are complex, but they can come into alignment with the father's design for us. We just have to submit every area of our life to that.

Heather Creekmore [00:02:43]:

Yeah. Thanks. Thanks for sharing that story. I mean, I know that was a really difficult thing for you both to walk through. The disassociation thing. I mean, that's a light bulb moment for, because I actually believe that we are trained by culture to disassociate pretty early on, you know, that you are told your body is a thing that you must, you know, I well, I used to kind of twist the scripture around the jars of clay. Right? Because I thought, like, God gave me this jar of clay, but it was kinda like a paint your own pottery thing.

Heather Creekmore [00:03:23]:

Like, you go, and then you, like, make it this right shape and the right color. And then I'm just a horrible artist, so it was always like, oh, I could just never get it quite right. You know, I just would, like, send mine to the kiln and then forget to go pick it up kind of thing. But that was the view of, like, my responsibility when it came to my body, that my body was a separate thing, a separate project, a separate task. It was like I had my spiritual life and, you know, whatever the Lord asked of me. And then on the other side was and your real mission in life is to make sure you get this right. So I know yeah. But putting it in disassociation language, I think, might be new to some people listening or watching today.

Keith Peeler [00:04:07]:

Yeah. Well, and part of the, I agree with you. The culture teaches to disassociate in poor ways. I do believe that the way the body and the mind and the spirit, soul, all that makes us who we are, the way God designed us, I do believe that this association is a tool that God has given us to keep us to be able to deal with the level of pain. Some people have so much, and so the only reason I'm bringing this up is we have had conversations with people. There's a psychological term called dissociative identity disorder. 

Keith Peeler [00:04:38]:

It used to be called multiple personalities. And there are some in the Christian world, well, some of the Christian world are against counseling. We have a great therapist. We're pro counseling. We do. And, they will say, oh, if you have dissociative identity disorder, you're just not trusting Jesus. It's a very harmful thing to say.

Keith Peeler [00:04:57]:

So I'm only bringing it up to say if you have had mental health issues, there is a mental health part of that. There's a spiritual part of that. There's a spiritual warfare part of that. But I wanna bless those of you out there listening that if you have dissociative tendencies, not even the pure disorder, but tendencies, we all disassociate in some way over things. The way we see it in prayer most often is we have a prayer tool called little Susie's. So when we're doing teaching, we don't wanna ever use somebody's personal name.

Keith Peeler [00:05:29]:

Okay? So our eternal volunteer is Susie. And a little example, say, oh, and Susie, you know, we're gonna pray this way, Susie. Right? And so little Susie is this prayer tool that we use helping people connect with how old they were when a trauma happened. K? So I'll go to my story. Little 4 year old Keith had an encounter of pornography. So when we pray with people, we go, okay, 4 year old Keith, where are you hurting? What's going on with you? And then we introduce Jesus to that memory, and that's that 4 year old Keith was holding a memory. That was a disassociation.

Keith Peeler [00:06:04]:

Yeah. My body had to disassociate because it was a trauma to me. And so what we're doing in prayer, and we're not mental health counselors. We make that very clear upfront. We're biblical teachers, and we're biblical prayer warriors. We've had lots of therapy as we understand the concepts, but we very much know our limitations. And we'll say, this is like inner children, which is a psychological term that we have learned both by reading and from therapists.

Keith Peeler [00:06:32]:

And it's helping just utilizing those memories in a way that we say, hey, Jesus can meet us in these hard places. And so whether a body image issue started because a mom said something or a coach or you saw somebody do something or there was a trauma that happened to you, and that trauma is kind of the root of your body image, then the hope that is there is what you have done to disassociate can be healed. So I just wanna make sure that that word isn't

Heather Creekmore [00:07:02]:

No. It's good.

Keith Peeler [00:07:03]:

Where I'm, I'm recognizing absolutely I mean, this thing right here, talk about disassociation. Right? It's a tool. And it's a fantastic tool, but, bam, it can distract us quickly from dealing with the pain in front of us.

Heather Creekmore [00:07:17]:

Yeah. No. That's good. I appreciate you making that distinction too. Because I mean, in some cases, disassociation is a protection. Right? You're able to kinda leave the moment so you don't feel, you know, the hardness of the trauma. So I appreciate you, spelling that out. Why our identity? Why is that the number one thing that it feels like Satan wants to undermine?

Megan Peeler [00:07:44]:

If our identity is messed with, we won't be operating in the full capacity that the father has for us. The enemy wants to derail us from our assignments. And if we feel weak, if we feel vulnerable, if we feel I mean, the big word that we've been getting lately is impostor syndrome.

Megan Peeler [00:08:03]:

People come in that are powerful leaders. They are so strong and so filled with the power of the Holy Spirit, and then they say, I feel like an impostor. And the enemy is attacking their identity to keep them from leading these groups that they're leading.

Keith Peeler [00:08:18]:

Yeah.

Megan Peeler [00:08:19]:

It's a great tactic of the enemy if he gets away with it. But that's our passion and desire is to expose that lie and to restore the identity from the very beginning, from the day they were knit together in their mother's womb. We wanna go back to the beginning and ask the Lord to redefine what he saw, not what the world saw.

Keith Peeler [00:08:42]:

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. If we know who we are, we know the enemy can't win. So, actually, every bit of the gospel is not about us. Because we're very central, like, me me me focused culture.

Keith Peeler [00:08:58]:

I'm recognizing my Westernness as I say this, but because we're focused that way, if the enemy can get us to focus on what's wrong with us, then we're ignoring all the things that Jesus did in us that are right. Right? And so we use Psalm, you kind of referenced it, we use Psalm 139 in our prayer plan. It's almost every time. I'm, you know, paraphrasing here, but that says, he knit me. He knit you together in your mother's womb that you are fearfully and wonderfully made.

Keith Peeler [00:09:27]:

And when we're teaching this, I'll always say, hey, I don't know how to knit. Okay? But I'm pretty sure the knitter doesn't just go jigga jigga jigga jigga jigga with their, you know, their hands and the needles, whatever. Oh, call to action of your identity being at its core from him. Yeah. And so if the enemy can derail us by attacking that identity through a trauma, through bullying, through - name it. Then if I don't know who I am, I don't know how to stand up to the evil that's in my life. Honestly, I'm not gonna get into the polarizing nature of the sexuality of our culture.

Keith Peeler [00:10:17]:

But I'm 100% convinced that what we're seeing with all of the gender confusion in our world right now is a hot button, satanic issue.

Heather Creekmore [00:10:30]:

Yeah.

Keith Peeler [00:10:30]:

It is the most precious thing that God has given us is our sexuality. It's why pornography is such a problem. It's why it's so demonic. It's why, because it's robbing us from real intimacy with God. And so we find other ways to fulfill it.

Keith Peeler [00:10:48]:

And I think it's body image, and I haven't, I have my own body image issues over my life as a man. They're different than Megan's, so I'm not gonna speak to your primary audience about body image. But I can say what I relate to though at the core of what's true about what we're talking about, what we experience in prayer is that that attack on your identity. The attack on your body is a direct attack from hell. And so when we can recognize that, we can recognize it's not just me, that there might be some evil involved, then we can go, oh my gosh. I thought this was all up to me. There might be some tools that might help me otherwise.

Keith Peeler [00:11:29]:

Oh, thank you, Jesus. Right. Yes. And I think, you know, again, for me, it was pornography and thinking, oh, and I had to go, I'm like, yes. I'm like Paul, it's just a thorn in my flesh. I got a bad understanding of the word.

Keith Peeler [00:11:41]:

Right?

Heather Creekmore [00:11:42]:

I'm so glad you saw that. Yeah.

Keith Peeler [00:11:44]:

Bad understanding of the word. Yeah. But because that had been there in my mind, the enemy distorted the scripture in my mind. And I bought the lie, and I thought, oh, well, I'll never get over this. So I'll just deal with it.

Keith Peeler [00:12:00]:

And then I get this training, like, no. There's some evil here. Let's just deal with it. I'll show you how to deal with it, and it's not that hard. And we went, this is not that hard at all.

Keith Peeler [00:12:08]:

And then we felt so great about it. We were a little overzealous at the beginning. We burned some friendship bridges. We're like, oh, you need this. You know? And we're extroverts. Like, you know, it's…

Megan Peeler [00:12:18]:

Learned a lot since 2011.

Heather Creekmore [00:12:23]:

Yeah. I'm so glad you said that about the thorn in the flesh because that's a message I get frequently. Like, isn't this just my thorn in the flesh? Isn't this just my thorn in the flesh? It’s like, no. No. It's not.

Keith Peeler [00:12:34]:

It's not.

Heather Creekmore [00:12:37]:

You know, so our thoughts affect our beliefs. Right? And then our beliefs affect our identity. Why? I mean, this is a speculative question perhaps. Like, all the women I talk to have been Christians for some number of time. Like, I don't often meet someone who, you know, just found out about Jesus last week and comes to my podcast. And, you know, most of the women I work with have maybe even been in church their whole lives. And so they can do this, like, split thing where it's like, yeah, they know all of Psalm 139, if not just verse 14.

Heather Creekmore [00:13:14]:

You know? And they know second Samuel that God looks on the heart. And, I mean, they can rattle through all the scriptures and they can tell you the gospel and they can. And yet at the same time, belief wise, there are some strongholds there. Like, how is there an explanation for, like, how that happens and why it's so hard for us to believe all this stuff that we know?

Megan Peeler [00:13:41]:

You know, I'm coming from a very conservative Baptist background and I did not know my authority. I knew that the pastor had authority to pray. And, honestly, when I got married, my husband was the pastor, so he prayed. But I did not have an identity that said, oh, no. I'm his co-heir, seated in heavenly places. I've been called to heal the sick, raise the dead, and cast out demons.

Megan Peeler [00:14:06]:

Lord, I never fathomed that that meant me. Even though he says it's me. And so I really believe that I didn't know my authority. And my position as his daughter and as a warrior. And as someone that had authority. I think I thought, God, I had to look up and reach up high to reach him.

Megan Peeler [00:14:29]:

And then and the enemy was down here and in the air, but I couldn't get to him. And it was just a skewed understanding of my access to the father. And so that's what I've grown in is knowing my authority, which I think is what's helped me combat the constant berating thoughts that come into my head.

Keith Peeler [00:14:50]:

Yeah. Yeah. And I think the way someone shared this to me, this is not original to me, but they talked to, even before our understanding comes experience. And so our experience informs our knowledge. So how we come to the Bible is the experience of learning. And so how do we come through it through x denomination, y denomination? How do we come to it through this kind of family, that kind of family, this kind of culture, that kind of culture? I mean, the reality is, like, I thought that that spiritual warfare stuff, oh, that's what happens in Cuba because I've been in Cuba and I saw it.

Keith Peeler [00:15:29]:

Oh, that's what happens in Africa, because I went to Africa, and I saw it. So, clearly, over there, where they don't have the same technology, it's a very Western thinking. I mean, this is, it was in me. Right? And so one of the challenges that I do when we do teaching and training is do you have a Western worldview that informs your Christianity, or do you have a biblical worldview that informs your understanding of your Western civilizational culture? You can be a churchianity Christian. And have no relationship with God. I've been in a couple of different seminaries, and not all the seminaries I went to were awesome.

Keith Peeler [00:16:07]:

And seminary for me was not much more in various places than a law degree about the Bible. And I met many seminary professors that could profess and teach at a world class level on history and languages and all kinds of things and get to know them, and they don't even know Jesus. So we can know I mean, I tell people all the time, it's kinda agitating. I tell people stop going to bible studies.

Keith Peeler [00:16:33]:

You know? Dang. You're such an undertaker. And then I and they go then they kinda get you know, they go, why? It's because if you're only studying about him, you'll never know him.

Keith Peeler [00:16:47]:

So I don't know what the next word is. I wanna go to a bible activation class. I wanna go to a bible - I don't know what it's, I haven't come up with a name yet, but with my kids, like, I could read a book about this beautiful lady sitting next to me. And I could open it, and I could read every page, and I could memorize it. I could know about her personality, what she liked, and I could be like, well, I'm in love with this lady. But there's nothing like hugging her and giving her a big old kiss.

Keith Peeler [00:17:10]:

Right? And developing intimacy takes our relationship to a new level. So the thing that we're pressing against all the time, it goes to identity, it goes to body image, is our intimacy with God is a very uncomfortable topic. Primarily because we haven't, again, I'm going back to experience. When I sat in the pew growing up in the church that I went to, and I went to an amazing church. I'm not picking on my church.

Megan Peeler [00:17:34]:

Me too.

Keith Peeler [00:17:35]:

But my experience was not that I am overwhelmed and overcome by his presence. My experience was, you need to learn more about him. And so for us, again, the radical transformation that happened, the reason we're so passionate about this is, it isn't because we found a new prayer tool. It's because we actually got introduced to an encounter and experience with Jesus through the power of the Holy Spirit, activated and understood through the word, a holistic part of it that came together that really gave us the foundation to be, like, one, holy moly, Jesus is real.

Keith Peeler [00:18:14]:

Real real. Two, he really is the chain breaker that I read about. I just didn't know it. Hadn't experienced it yet. And three, like, there's more for us. All of us.

Keith Peeler [00:18:27]:

So what's your favorite thing to say to you? There's always more. There's always more.

Heather Creekmore [00:18:29]:

There's always more.

Keith Peeler [00:18:32]:

Like, we get a prayer appointment, and we go hey. And there's always more. We're never done.

Keith Peeler [00:18:36]:

I think that's at first, I thought, oh, gosh. We're gonna do this forever? Can I just figure it out and move on? At first, that felt like hopeless and overwhelming.

Keith Peeler [00:18:47]:

And then it became, like, well, let me think about this. No. Actually, that's quite comforting. That means no one's got it together. I mean Yeah. No one has figured it out.

Keith Peeler [00:18:58]:

Yeah. Oh, wait. I'm just like everybody else?

Keith Peeler [00:19:03]:

You’re a son. And there's sons and daughters. We're all sons and daughters. We're also with the same holy spirit. And so peeling back the lies about identity, about who we are attached to body image, attached to whatever. Like, when Jesus shows up and tells you the truth about who you are. That's a different experience. You're not learning about what he says.

Keith Peeler [00:19:25]:

You're hearing him. You're sensing him. And when we do pray, we don't do the hearing God thing because not everybody we think, well, that means you have to hear his voice. I've never heard his voice audibly. But in prayer, I can sense from him clear messages. Sometimes I get pictures.

Keith Peeler [00:19:40]:

Sometimes I get a nudge in my heart toward a certain phrase or a Bible verse or Megan's been getting songs. Songs all the time lately. So it's Yeah. To us, I think that identity is being attacked because it keeps us from intimacy. So we know that we're a favored son or a favored daughter. We act like it.

Keith Peeler [00:19:59]:

But if the enemy can keep us thinking we're orphans, we'll act like that too.

Heather Creekmore [00:20:03]:

Right. Because the knowing your favorite son or daughter, let me put some different language to that. It's actually knowing that you're loved, like, on purpose. Like, it's specific to you. It's not this like, well, God has to love everyone. So of course, God loves me. He loves the whole world, I sang about in Sunday school.

Heather Creekmore [00:20:23]:

You know, it's not that. It's no, like I mean, you know the verse about the hairs on your head. But again, that kinda just flies right by. It's like, oh, no. He actually knows this. And he knows the struggle I have, and he knows this part of me, and he knows these things that happened to me. He was there. He's just intimately, to use your word, intimately involved in every part of me and in every part of my life.

Heather Creekmore [00:20:49]:

And he still loves me. And that, you know, I think that understanding that is hard because to your point, the western church, so much of it, it feels like and, again, generalizing, and I love church. I love the church. Absolutely. But a lot of it has come down to, are you following our rules? You know? Do you look a certain way? Do you act a certain way? Like, this is what a Christian is instead of that encounter. So just briefly as we close-up. So I've been doing, you guys trained me, I've been doing some praying with women.

Heather Creekmore [00:21:26]:

Probably wasn't on the top of my list of things I was really excited to do. Keith knows I'm being honest.

Keith Peeler [00:21:35]:

I remember that phone call. And I was like, you do know you're gonna be doing more of this. Right? You're like, no. Like No.

Heather Creekmore [00:21:40]:

I really, no, I don't think so. But, no, I've been doing it. And, you know, it's always amazing how the Holy Spirit shows up. It really is. I mean, every single time, I'm like, wow. Okay. That was good.

Heather Creekmore [00:21:59]:

That was good. Need to do this more. Give us a sense. I mean, you walked through this a little bit in the last part of our episode in the first part of the episode rather. But, like, what could someone expect if they were to do some prayer around, in this specific sort of way, healing prayer?

Megan Peeler [00:22:19]:

Yeah. Well, we have an intense expectation that Jesus will show up because he does every single time. But the truth is we never know how he's gonna show up because he shows up exactly the way that that person needs. And I feel like we allow, we empower people to say, oh, that was the voice of God? I had no idea. So they might get a picture and they may be surprised by the picture, or they might just see Jesus taking them into a safe place. We've dealt with people that have lost a child, and they will encounter Jesus holding their child in heaven. We never know how he's gonna show up. For me, he literally looked at me and said, look what I do with you over and over and over.

Megan Peeler [00:23:06]:

And so I think what you expect is to have an encounter that will change the way that you view your relationship with God, because he's more accessible than you realize. And so that's what we get to see happening over and over and over.

Heather Creekmore [00:23:21]:

That's good, Meaghan.

Keith Peeler [00:23:23]:

Yeah. I think that, you know, he's just so good, and so what we often want to do is kinda line this out in a 1, 2, 3 step process. So what I would tell you to expect is just like every other relationship you have, it's messy. And that it's okay to be messy. He's comfortable with the mess.

Keith Peeler [00:23:48]:

We often, you know, have people imagine or pray through that scripture where Jesus has the children come to him. Right? Because, like, oh, no. He's too busy, you know. And then we hear this all the time. Oh, god. He's so busy. He doesn't have time to worry about my little fill in the blank.

Keith Peeler [00:24:04]:

I'm like, not how this works, actually. He does care about that little fill in the blank thing. And so I think that what to expect is to be surprised by how present he actually already is. And when we're open to that reality or open to that possibility, then I believe intimacy at a new level is possible. 

Heather Creekmore [00:24:33]:

I love that. Thank you guys so much. I think this has been really helpful and perhaps really eye opening for some listeners today. My heart is to demystify this. Right? It doesn't have to be scary. You know, it doesn't have to be Halloween. Right? But yet at the same time, we need an awareness that it exists.

Heather Creekmore [00:25:03]:

So thank you guys so much. You guys are doing a lot of great new things through Everfree. Will you tell everyone just, like, where they can connect with you and if there's anything, you know, coming up that you wanna mention?

Keith Peeler [00:25:14]:

I think the biggest thing right now is we're in a transitional season. We have just left an amazing missions organization with their blessing, and so a year ish ago in October, we launched out. So the last year, we've kind of been putting the pieces together. And so coming January of this year, we're launching some new online tools. We've always done online prayer appointments, and so that's all on our website. We have a podcast that's been a little bit neglected, but in the next couple weeks, months, actually, your inspiration to me on yours is, like, oh, you really should dust off those microphones and get back to this.

Keith Peeler [00:25:48]:

I have some new podcast episodes coming up, and so the easiest way to find out is everfreeprayer.org, and you can get in touch with us that way. If you have a follow-up question, we're happy to answer that. What do you wanna say about the women's part of this ministry, babe?

Megan Peeler [00:26:02]:

Yeah. I'm very passionate about seeing women set free, and I spend a lot of time on Zoom calls like this, meeting with people and praying with them. And so that is EverFreeHer. And I go into small groups, bible studies, and lead them through weekend retreats of freedom and healing, prayer where they are able to use their creativity and imagination. And we call it redemptive imagination that the Lord redeems the pain and the trauma that they've been through. And so I offer that with EverFreeHer.

Heather Creekmore [00:26:33]:

Love it. Love it. And I'll make sure those links are in the show notes, so everyone can connect with you. Well, thank you both so much.

Keith Peeler [00:26:41]:

Well, thank you.

Heather Creekmore [00:26:42]:

For your time.

Keith Peeler [00:26:42]:

Well, I appreciate this because it is an unusual topic for many. And that demystifying language, that's exactly the language used. So I appreciate you having us here because we're very passionate about people being equipped and knowing, hey, this doesn't have to be weird. So the way you said that was perfect.

Heather Creekmore [00:27:00]:

My pleasure. I wanna see people get free too. So we're all on the same team, you know? That's right. Okay. Take care of y'all. Thank you for watching or listening today. I hope something today has helped you stop comparing and start living. Bye bye. Hey, friend. Have you seen our cute merch yet? Go to improve body image.com backslash shop, and you can find cute compared to who tanks, t shirts, and hats that will encourage you to remember to stop comparing and start living.