My dad started a piano tuning and repair business when I was 7 years old. As part of that business, there were a lot of pianos that had to be moved. Being a young boy that wanted to be just like dad, I wanted to be able to pick up a piano and move it.
At 7 years old, I only opened doors and put the piano dolly under the piano (with an occasional squished finger). Try as I might, I couldn't lift a piano. As I got older my strength increased and though I was very skinny, at age 12 I was able to lift a piano.
When I was 13 we moved from Alabama to Louisiana for a little while, and some oil field workers came to help us unload. When it came to the piano, the two guys stood with their backs stiff and tried to pick it up with their arms. They carried it a foot or two and declared it too heavy to move. They asked my dad, "You being a cripple, how did you get this piano loaded?" My dad replied that he didn't load it. They both said they knew that and then proceeded to ask how he had got the piano on the truck. My dad replied that Jeffrey (me) had loaded it.
To this, the guys started really laughing. I was only 5'3" and weighed about a 100 pounds or so and my arms looked like toothpicks. My dad then told me to move the piano into the house, so I picked one end of the piano up (using my legs) and deftly kicked a piano dolly under it. I rolled the piano in the house and into position by myself. The oil field workers couldn't believe it.
Though my arms were like toothpicks, my leg and back muscles became very strong from all the heavy lifting. At the age of 14 I moved a piano in a Uhaul trailer that was barely taller than the piano. When I got ready to unload it, I was faced with the dilemma of how to get it out of the trailer without scratching the top when I tilted it down.
I decided to build a platform using cinder blocks so I could pull the piano straight out, then go down a ramp into the garage. All went well until the piano was a little over halfway out and the cinder blocks broke. The piano fell about a foot before I caught it and lowered it to the ground.
When I caught the piano, I blew or badly damaged the L1 and L2 vertebrae. I hit the ground and couldn't move my legs. After a few days it got better and I was able to get around, but from that point on I started having severe back problems.
The one thing that helped me is that my back muscles were very strong, so though the disc were damaged I could still walk. I wish I had all the money I spent on chiropractors over the years after that injury!
Often I would be walking along and it would feel like two 2' long daggers were stabbed through my back, one on either side above my hip bones and in the kidney area. I would hit the ground and not be able to walk normally for 3 days each time.
As the years went by, the pain level kept increasing. I had watched my mom get immune to pain killers so I decided not to take any other than taking an Ibuprofen a few times a year. By the eighth year the pain had got really intense. Often things had a reddish hue as I dealt with the pain. I likened the pain to being water inside a tank, and I was inside of the tank in the middle. The pain wasn't in me, it felt like I was in the pain.
On several occasions when my back went out I had absolutely no feeling either from the waist down or from under my arm pits down. The nice thing about when that happened is that the pain was numbed quite a bit. I would completely lose the use of my legs, so I would drag myself by my arms, do a chin up into a vehicle, and use my hands to move my legs to work the accelerator and brake pedals. A couple of times I drove to the chiropractor office, fell out on the ground, and dragged myself into the office. After an adjustment, I would be able to walk out on crutches, but it would be three days before I could work again. Oh, how I often wish I had let that piano fall!
In February 1993 I heard the pastor in the church we went to mention that it was no harder for God to heal cancer than it was to heal a headache. That really jumped out at me, and I went home that Wednesday night contemplating that. An invisible God that I can not see, if He did something small (in my eyes) it was just the same as Him doing something big (in my eyes). I imagined him moving a pencil across a table versus him moving a mountain. Wouldn't it be just as miraculous either way?
I worked for a medical transportation service and every Saturday I would go pick up Mrs. Adams who was on dialysis. When I got up that Saturday morning, I had to have my wife help me sit up in bed like I always did. I couldn't go from laying on my back to sitting. Once when my wife was gone, it took me 30 minutes to get out of bed. I wiggled over to the edge, fell off and rolled over in the air, swinging my knees under me. I crawled backwards to the bedpost and with teeth chattering forced myself to an upright standing position. This morning however, I had my wife to help me out of bed.
I had a splitting migraine headache that morning. I couldn't see straight it hurt so bad, the first time I can ever recall having a headache like that. I got out to the car and got on the road to go pick up Mrs. Adams. As I was driving down a lonely stretch of highway that morning at 4 am, it looked like the road was a roller coaster in front of me. My head hurt so bad it was distorting my view. I prayed a simple prayer: "Lord, if you will take this headache from me, I'll give you all the glory for it." As soon as I said those words, the headache was instantly gone! I looked around me with the hackles rising on the back of my. That was weird! I then thought "Did I even have a headache? Yes, I did, just a minute before I could not see straight!!"
That morning I talked to the Lord. I told him that I knew that He had healed my headache to give me the faith to believe Him for healing my back. I also told him that I was tired of seeing all the theatrics of preachers as they prayed for people's healing's and took all the glory that rightfully belonged to the Lord. I told him I knew that in James chapter 5 it says for any that are sick to call for the elders of the church, and in our church that would be the pastor. I told the Lord that the next day, Sunday, I would go up front and ask the pastor to pray for me. If he asked what for, I would not tell him because this was strictly between me and the Lord and if anyone did the healing it would be Jesus Christ, not some man.
The next day after service was over, I went to the front and asked for prayer. I still remember that i was standing to the left of the pulpit and the pastor was on the platform the pulpit was on. When I asked for prayer, he asked what I needed prayer for. I replied "I just need prayer." The pastor looked slightly annoyed at that answer, but got out a bottle of oil, dabbed some on his finger and touched my forehead and said "Lord you see what his need is, I ask you to take care of it in the name of Jesus, amen." Short, sweet, I don't know what you are here for but here it is type of prayer.
When the pastor said "Amen" it felt like a bolt of lightning hit him and me both, knocking us back from each other. I felt the pain level going down, just like my analogy of the tank, with the water (pain) slowly going down. It started at the top of my head and slowly went down. Above the line was no pain, below the line was pain. My head was above it, then my neck, my shoulders, until it reached my waist. When it got to my waist, it felt like all the pain that had surrounded me funneled into my two separate legs, like water running down a pipe. When it reached my feet, it felt like it went out into two puddles on the floor. At that point I had absolutely no pain.
I staggered backwards until I reached the front pew and sat down. I had no pain, but I still had restricted movement. I couldn't twist my trunk, my shoulders, or my neck just like normal. The difference was that now I could try to as hard as I could, I just couldn't physically do it. Prior to this, the pain prevented me. When I walked, I still had to keep my upper half centered over my lower half. I had a disjointed feeling from the two vertebrae that were gone and only my muscles were holding me up.
When I got home that day, I stretched back in the recliner and heard three loud "POPS" and I lost the disjointed feeling and could walk normally again. Each day during the week it popped going up my back, freeing up. When I got up on Saturday morning (with no help!) I was completely whole from the knot everyone has at the base of the neck on down. I still couldn't turn my head though.
I heard a little voice say "You just asked God to heal your back, you didn't ask him to heal your neck. I laughed and said "Devil, I know that is you, I asked God to heal my SPINE and it is all connected!" Later on in the day, my neck popped all the way up into the base of my skull and I was completely whole again.
After this happened, every once in a while I would get hit by the pains and hit the ground again. I would be in total agony and I thought that my worst fears were being realized. For 3 days I would be hurting, worrying that I was going to have to have back surgery, I wouldn't be able to work and support my family, etc. After three days, I would gather my senses and say "Lord, I know that you healed me. I claim my healing in the name of Jesus!" When I did that, either immediately or at least the same day all the pain would leave.
After a while I started noticing a pattern. Whenever I would get attacked with back pains, it always preceded something happening in the spiritual realm. Someone would get healed or a blessing, either in my family or someone I knew. When I finally made this connection, I changed my behavior. When the back pain would hit, I would get excited and say "Lord Jesus I don't know what you are about to do, but I'm anxious to see what it is!" I would worship the Lord and a short time later the pain would leave. It finally got to the point that the pain would hit, my hands would shoot in the air and start worshiping the Lord, and the pain would IMMEDIATELY leave. The devil was trying to attack my faith to hinder what God was doing.
Though I got victory over this, I did fall for a lie of Satan. I became convinced that I was not like other men. Though I had no pain and no restricted movement, I thought that I was still broken. I had not seen an X-ray after the healing. I was extremely careful when I had to lift something, terrified that I was going to end up flat on my back for the rest of my life.
(To be continued)
Jeff
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