I Got Healed. God Had To Teach Me To Own It.

When I turned 30, my body started to fall apart. My knees hurt regularly, my shoulders ached, but the worst was my lower back—I was often in so much pain it was impossible to walk. There were days I had to literally crawl from my bed, to the bathroom, and back again because I just couldn’t get my back straightened out.

I pleaded with God to heal me. And while I waited, I got on a medical regimen—part medication, part chiropractor visits—that slowly began to move the needle in the right direction. The only problem? It wouldn’t stay there very long. As soon as I felt like I might be inching back to 100%, my body would unexpectedly fail me again. It was incredibly deflating to feel like I was taking one step forward, followed by two-steps back.

Hearing my wife and kids playing in the other room, while I was nursing my back with an icepack, dragged me down to a dark place of despair. The endless phone scrolling, a distraction from the pain and loneliness, didn’t help either. I slowly began to pull away from God. I stopped asking for healing, and found myself playing the victim. I was down bad—physically and spiritually.

Worst of all, I work for a church. I’d knew God could do miracles. I’d seen them first-hand, and even prayed for people—friends and strangers—who’d received a breakthrough from God during our time together. I’d gone into this three-year pain journey determined to experience God’s healing power. But that determination had turned to hopelessness. Most days, I was just surviving.

At a low point, my job required me to attend a training session with a guest speaker named Paul Maconochie. The topic? Healing prayer. Can you hear my eyes rolling through the screen? At best, I was skeptical.

But God used Paul’s stories, alongside his kindness and genuineness, to begin breaking down walls of cynicism and doubt I’d built around my heart. I felt hope starting to creep back in. And then he said something wild. We weren’t just going to talk about healing prayer, we were actually going to try it.

I understand that might sound like a gimmick to some, but Paul’s math added up for me. He explained how healing happens all throughout the pages of scripture (like here, here and here for a start); that pain and suffering wasn’t part of God’s original intent for life on earth; that God has given his children, then and now, the right and authority to ask for healing; and that, as a good Father, God likes to give his children good things.

We broke into smaller groups, and I was quickly identified as someone that needed healing prayer, as many of my teammates knew about my back problems. I wasn’t completely sure, but hope pushed me to the center of the circle. My teammates gathered around me and began to pray.

Some gently rested their hands on my back and shoulders, asking Jesus to heal me. Others stood around us, thanking God for the blessing of my body and asking him to bring it back into perfect alignment, the way He created it to work. Others quoted scripture. Honestly, it was a bit of a blur, but the love around me was palpable.

I’m not sure how long we stood there, but all of a sudden, something inside me began to shift. My core began to tighten. I could feel my back straighten up, degree by degree. My hips came back into alignment. The pain was gone.

I couldn’t believe it. After three-years of debilitating pain, God had healed my back!

I’d had a chiropractor appointment already scheduled for the next day. I walked into his office and told him what happened. He did his thing, and at the end of the appointment, looked me dead in the eyes. “Looks like prayer works,” he said.

I was on cloud 9. I walked taller. I was more confident. As my healing story spread, friends and coworkers were amazed to hear how God dramatically showed up. Others came to me for prayer for their back pain, and we sought God together for their relief.

It was an incredible time… until it wasn’t. God healed me. And I squandered it.

I very quickly went back to my old ways of living, using and abusing my body as if I were invincible. I quit my daily stretching routine that had kept my back muscles limber. I stopped being careful about how I lifted heavy objects or carried boxes. I stopped paying attention to the foods I ate and exercise became irregular. I pushed my body to the limit, at work and at home. Somehow, I was still surprised a few months later, when I found myself back where it all began—in bed with an icepack, needing way too many ibuprofen to manage the pain.

How could it get back to this so quickly? My mind began to spiral, trying to process what was going on.

“Why am I injured again?"
“Did I do something to make God mad at me?”
“Will this ever end?”
“Did God really heal me?”

Maybe you’ve had similar questions. I get it.

I wanted to wallow in my feelings, but I knew that wouldn’t help. Now was not the time to take my ball and run home, like a hurt kid on the school playground. Sulking and despair weren’t going to be the answer this time.

Instead of listening to the voices that said I was a victim, I kept going back to God. I took my pain, my frustration, and my questions to Him. And in the midst of that seeking, I found some answers.

About a year out from that training session, I can confidently say this: God did heal me at work that day; I believe he’s got more healing in store for me; and through it all, I’ve learned how to take ownership of my miracle.

Perhaps you’ve been healed, and you feel untouchable. Or you were healed, and now sense a regression coming on. Or maybe you’ve prayed for healing, it’s never come, and you are deeply discouraged.

No matter where you find yourself—and I’ve been in all those places too—I believe even more healing is possible for you.

Below are four hard lessons God taught me as I navigated the waters of pain, healing, pain again, and life on the other side of a miracle.

1) God Gave Us Our Bodies

Can I be brutally honest? I’ve struggled with body image for much of my life. You might not expect that to be the case for a guy, but it’s true. I’m taller, and bigger, than most of my friends. It made me feel like a bit of a freak, sticking out from the crowd in a way I was never really comfortable with.

When my back got injured again, all those feelings got dialed up to 11. I hated my body. It felt stupid and useless, the worst part of who I am. After getting a taste of “normal life,” I was back in bed, missing time with my wife and kids, unable to get to work some days, and even second-guessing my ability to do everyday tasks, like driving, fearing it would worsen my pain.

I settled back into my bad habit of doomscrolling, when God got my attention with an interview. In the clip, journalist and news anchor Anderson Cooper was interviewing Stephen Colbert, who remarked about how it’s such “a gift to exist.”

Those few words shook something inside me. I realized that I had been hating the very gift God had given me—my body. While it was okay to be disappointed or frustrated with my body’s limitations, it was never appropriate to throw out the baby with the bathwater.

God gave me this body—with all of its beauty and quirks. Scripture says He designed it, gifting it to me to take care of.

Paul, a missionary who wrote the majority of the New Testament, lays it out pretty clearly:

“Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body.” - 1 Corinthians 6:19-20

Our bodies are more than just things we use to move objects or get from one place to another. They’re a way for us to interact with the world that God made—tasting amazing food, seeing beautiful sights, and experiencing an array of emotions. They’re a place where the same Spirit that raised Jesus from the dead lives. They’re a gift we can use to bless others, helping make the earth a little bit more like heaven.

With that comes the responsibility to take care of our bodies, treating them less like a tool to use and abuse, and more like a cathedral, a magnificent work of art built to display God’s favorite part of creation: you and me.

That said, there are always things out of our control, and we live in a reality that is filled with sickness and tragedy, causing some to have chronic pain and disabilities that feel unfair. But even with those limitations, Scripture says we reflect the image of God, even if we don’t always feel it.

Learning to love my body, to see it for the incredible blessing it is—when it works and when it doesn’t—has made me more patient with myself, and more grateful to the God who gave it to me.

2) Healing Requires Change

Right after I was healed, I went back to life as usual. That’s what we all want when we’re facing an injury, right? We want to get back to normal.

When I stopped stretching, quit watching what I ate, and wasn’t cautious about how I moved and used my body, my back became a ticking time bomb waiting to self-destruct… and it did.

While it’s tempting to blame God (“why didn’t you heal me for good?”), I had to come face-to-face with a harsh reality—this was my fault.

In the book of John, there’s a story where Jesus meets a crippled man who had been waiting years for a chance at healing. Then Jesus comes onto the scene. Without even touching the man, Jesus speaks words of healing that change the man’s body. In the blink of an eye, the crippled man is up and moving about.

Jesus ends the interaction with some important instructions:

“Afterward Jesus found him in the temple and said to him, “See, you are well! Sin no more, that nothing worse may happen to you.” - John 5:14

I’m not saying your injury or illness was caused by sin—Jesus makes that point quite clearly. Instead, I read Jesus' instruction to the man as caution against mindlessly returning to the old way he lived. Instead, he had to change his life and habits—physical, spiritual, emotional, and relational—to ensure he stayed healthy.

That’s clearly not how I was living my life. So I made some adjustments.

For me, the biggest change was getting into a regular stretching routine. Every night, you can find me with a foam roller and a Theragun, spending 30 minutes stretching muscles in my legs and back. I also had to start changing my diet and working on losing weight to put less strain on my back. With this award-winning combo, my back and body have gotten to a much better place.

Our main guy, Paul, also points at this when he writes:

“But I discipline my body and keep it under control, lest after preaching to others I myself should be disqualified.” - 1 Corinthians 9:27

Paul knew a little somethin’-something’ about physical hardship. He walked thousands of miles over the course of his life (my back already hurts just thinking about it), was whipped, beaten with a rod, and stoned and left for dead. He also describes a “thorn in his flesh” that God never healed, something that many scholars believe was a type of physical impairment that impacted his life. Even with all this, Paul knew the value of discipline, keeping his body under control and in-shape so he could continue to pursue the work God gave him to do.

God healed me. And I have the responsibility to take ownership of that healing by making changes in my life that support, encourage, and promote that wholeness.

3) Share Your Healing

God’s healing might have happened in my body, but it wasn’t just for me. I have a story now, and with that comes the responsibility and privilege to tell it.

After healing a demon-possessed man, Jesus gives him some interesting instructions:

“As [Jesus] was getting into the boat, the man who had been possessed with demons begged him that he might [go] with him. And [Jesus] did not permit him but said, ‘Go home to your friends and tell them how much the Lord has done for you, and how he has had mercy on you.’ And he went away and began to proclaim in the Decapolis how much Jesus had done for him, and everyone marveled.” - Mark 5:18-20

Sharing my story of healing has been incredible. I’ve seen it turn up the spiritual temperature in a room. People become bolder about asking for their own healing, and others become more confident in praying for healing, as they come face-to-face with someone who has experienced it.

Big or small, you have a story. And if it involves healing of any kind—physical, emotional, spiritual, or relational—then there is real power in your words. Sharing your healing has ripple effects. It reminds you of God’s goodness in your life, it points others to God’s power and presence, and it gives praise back to Him. That’s what I’d call a win-win-win.

When we step out and speak about the glorious things God is doing in our lives, more lives get changed.

“In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.” - Matthew 5:16

4) Pray For Others

After my initial healing, I became the “back healing” guy. Everyone I knew with back issues (and some I didn’t) started coming to me for prayer. It was intimidating because, in my own life up to this point, I hadn’t seen many people get healed. I didn’t want these people to leave disappointed if their backs weren’t any better after praying together. But what was I gonna do, tell people “Sorry, I can’t pray for you today. Too busy.”? That sounds even worse.

So I took a deep breath and went for it. Taking all I’d learned in that training session, and what I saw modeled throughout the Bible, I decided to say yes to anyone who asked for prayer. For the first few people, I didn’t see anything happen. I would pray with every ounce of my being and authority, and yet nothing seemed to change. It was deflating, but I remembered how it took many prayers over many years to get my back healed, so I knew I needed to persevere.

I kept praying. If I saw someone whom I had prayed for previously, I’d pray for them again. If I prayed for someone in a moment and if they didn’t feel a change, I’d try again, right then and there. That’s when things started to shift.

One of my coworkers came to me with a fresh back injury. She was in tremendous pain. A few others jumped in to pray alongside me. We prayed once and she described her pain as an 8 (on a scale of 10). So we prayed again. As we leaned in, her pain began to diminish. When we finished, through tears she described her pain as a “two.” All in the course of five minutes. It’s nothing me, or the other people praying did. It was God’s goodness, showing up and healing her.

I’m not fully sure if being a recipient of healing prayer makes us more prone to see others healed. But I do know that being persistent and expectant that God can, wants to, and does heal makes a huge difference.

What I have received, I want to always be ready to give back:

“Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse lepers, cast out demons. You received without paying; give without pay.” - Matthew 10:8

What’s Next?

In a training session, surrounded by coworkers, God healed my back… and he used the ups and downs of a potential regression to teach me just how crucial it is to take ownership of that healing. I’m doing that by practicing gratitude for my body, making necessary lifestyle changes, sharing my story, and always being ready to pray for others.

It’s tempting to think that a miracle would change everything about our lives. If we saw it, or experienced it, everything else would come into alignment and life would be easy. That’s just not the case, and it never has been. The Israelites God fed with miraculous food in the desert outside Egypt still complained of hunger; the blind man Jesus healed still faced persecution by the authorities; the boy Paul raised from the dead eventually died again.

While it’s tempting to chase a miracle—and take it from me, they are incredible when they happen and I am so grateful—the true miracle is one equally available to all of us. That when I was spiritually malformed, broken and dead without hope, God brought me back to life. He went to the greatest extent possible—sending His son to earth to die on a cross—to heal me of my greatest ailment, my debilitating sinful nature, and bring me into eternal healing. He did the same thing for you.

One day, I get to be with Him forever, with a new body (and a new back), healed in full.

That’s a miracle that never, ever, runs out.

“Taste and see that the Lord is good; blessed is the one who takes refuge in him.” - Psalm 34:8

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Disclaimer: This article is 100% human-generated.

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