In 1988, while waiting at a stoplight, a truck Christopher was driving was plowed into from behind. After the collision the truck was not in terrible shape because the other car had rammed into the large, steel lift gate on the back of the truck. Christopher tried to shake it off too. But, about 6 months after the collision,he started waking up in the middle of the night unable to feel his arms. He also started having neck pain and lower back pain around the same time. The back pain got progressively worse through the years such that every few months it would flair up and the back pain would be so debilitating that he couldn't stand up and even at times could not get out of bed.
About 23 years later (2011) Christopher started attending Agathos. During that season we were focusing on praying for people with back pain but Christopher never felt like he qualified to "stand up for prayer" because his back usually wasn't hurting a lot at that exact moment. That fall, Christopher went on a men's retreat. On the drive back from the retreat, two other guys from church and him were talking about the power of prayer. So, Christopher said "I always have back pain but I never have it when it's time to pray." One of them encouraged Christopher "don't let that stop you from claiming the promise or getting that healing!" The other said "why don't we just pray for you right now?" Christopher grew up around prayer and "knew about laying on of hands and seeing people healed" but "expecting it (healing) is a completely different thing." Christopher was not having a "flair up" but was experiencing his normal, low-level back pain. The second the two guys touched him and started praying, Christopher INSTANTLY stopped hurting! Christopher thought "that was cool, but it is not unusual for the pain to come and go" so literally while they were praying for him he was shifting in his seat to see if he could make the pain come back. The pain did not come back!!! That was in 2011. He had the back pain since 1988. It is now 2016. It has not come back!!!
Now, it is worth noting that over the normal course of life (in late 2015) Christopher started feeling some pain come up in his lower back. He said to himself "this can't be because God healed me!" He literally got angry and said "the devil is NOT going to steal my testimony!" "I am not giving up that victory and I am not letting that go!"