I injured my back when I was 10 years old. My older brother had dared me to do a flip, which I thought would be fun and easy to do. I tried doing the flip, didn’t make it and landed flat on my back. That’s when I started to have a serious problem with my back and really bad back pains for the next 20 years.

Shortly after my fall, I noticed that breathing brought on pain in my sides. My mother, who was greatly alarmed, took me to chiropractors, who thought it was only a matter of making adjustments regularly to my spine. Well, after numerous adjustments over the next few years, the pain didn’t go away. Both the chiropractors and doctors that I saw couldn’t tell me what was wrong with my back. The chiropractors kept telling me all I needed was more adjustments while the doctors told me to expect more pain the older I got “because the spine degenerates as you get older.” Basically, nobody had answers or a cure for me.

As I grew up, I lived with pain as a constant companion. It was hard to get up and walk around. It was painful to sit up and stand up. Some days the pain was so intense it hurt even to breathe—every little movement gave me pain.  Even on “better” days, I couldn’t go jogging, I couldn’t exercise and driving was also hard because I couldn’t turn my head or move my body without pain shooting through my body. Sometimes the pain would take me down for days to weeks at a time.

I hated the fact that I couldn’t experience the kind of success I wanted in my family life and in my career. I knew my wife and two beautiful kids wanted a husband and a dad around to do fun stuff with, but I just couldn’t do those things. I couldn’t take them to the park and play with them like I wanted to. Work was also frustating because often I had to call in sick. I wanted to be able to go to work, to do all I needed to do and just be successful at my job, but I felt so limited when I had to deal with the pain all the time.

I hated not being able to enjoy my family or my job, but I didn’t know how to change things. Medicines weren’t working—they only made me nauseous, tired and drowsy and gave only very temporary pain-relief. Even though I was in church, I wasn’t sure God loved me or that He would heal me because I was not perfect. I was quite sure He would not heal me because I had messed up and hadn’t done enough or made enough sacrifices to please Him. Some days, I was so depressed, I even wondered if God was real.

Things pretty much stayed the same until early 2013 when I started to listen to Pastor Prince’s Destined To Reign broadcast. From his preaching, I found out that because of what Jesus did for me at the cross, God still loved me and was there for me even when I messed up. That was such a huge comfort and assurance for me that I wanted to hear more so I started to record every single episode that came on.

Shortly after that, one day in April, I tuned in to Pastor Prince’s program when I had to call in sick again because of the pain. I lay on the couch and watched him teach on healing. I heard him say again that even though I didn’t do things that glorified Him, God still loves me and He can still heal me. Pastor Prince taught how Jesus was the final sacrifice for us and how only through Jesus Christ, we are righteous and through Jesus Christ, we are healed. And the more he broke it down using scriptures, the more I saw that Jesus alone—not what I did—made me eligible for God’s healing.

During that broadcast, Pastor Prince asked everybody who had a condition whether in the congregation or at home to stand up while he prayed for them. Before he prayed, he said, “Lift up your hands and pray with me. God is going to touch you.” As he was praying, he suddenly stopped and said, “There is a man at home who is suffering pain in the right side of his back.” Then, he snapped his fingers and said, “God has healed you.”

I’ll never forget it because immediately, I felt a warmth, a relaxation in my muscles that I hadn’t felt since before the accident and I knew that God had healed me. Right in front of the TV, I started bawling. I couldn’t believe it! One moment I couldn’t move, the next, I was bending and I could feel the muscles in my back stretching...and there was no pain. The feeling was so indescribable that all I could do was cry for a while, before I called my wife to tell her what had happened.

Since that day, the pain has not come back and everything has changed. I can run around with my kids. We go to the park now and run and play and I don’t come back with any pain, nor does the pain show up the next day. I no longer feel pain when I stand, sit or breathe, like I used to. I’ve started exercising and can even run through an obstacle course now. Work has become a joy too—this year has been one of the most successful years my company has ever had and I know it’s because of God’s favor bringing in the sales.

It’s been amazing, and I’m so grateful to Pastor Prince for preaching the truth about God’s grace, and I’m so grateful God for healing me and for showing me He still loves me and for changing my life so tremendously!