Back Injury Cripples but God Heals
Grove City, PA
Jeane Jeffery loves spending time with her grandkids and especially spending time outdoors. She says, “I play with the kids. I run with the kids. I enjoy being outdoors.” Then in December 2019, Jeanne was helping her son move some boxes, when his dog knocked her down, hurting her back.
Jeane recalls, “Just doing things just began to create more pain. I couldn't go to the chiropractor till the next day. And he took x-rays and I just went home and cried for three days.” The chiropractor told Jeane she had scoliosis and her pelvis was 35% out of position. It had never caused problems before, but when Jeane fell that all changed.
She says, “I had to stop running with the children. And pretty much just ended up not walking, and then it even got too painful to sit. Getting out of bed was difficult, I couldn't raise myself up. I couldn't stand straight. I stood at an angle. And I would have to just stand until I could let the pain pass.”
Jeane couldn’t afford to continue seeing her chiropractor so she endured the pain. Just getting around her house was excruciating and she had to sleep in an easy chair because lying in her bed was too painful. Jeane remembers, “I'm not someone who's easily depressed or discouraged, and it was like that ended my life. I did not know what to do. And you can only take so many bottles of Aleve and that doesn't fix the pain, that just deadens the pain, but it doesn't fix it.”
Although a godly woman who often prays for others, Jeane accepted the pain as part of getting older. She says, “I didn't think of praying for healing. What I thought of was, 'Give me the strength to get through each day.'”
As the weeks turned into months with no relief, Jeane’s depression grew. She recalls, “It’s crippling emotionally, not just physically, but emotionally. I was at the point of feeling emotionally desperate because there's nothing anybody can do.”
Then in May 2020, Jeane turned on The 700 Club hoping it would boost her spirit. “The 700 Club always made me feel good.” Jeane says, “In particular, I always love the time of prayer because I've prayed for a lot of people.”
But God had something else in store that day. Terry Meeuwsen had a word from God, “There’s someone, you have a deformity on your spine . . . God is healing that for you. He’s just correcting it. You’ve had it your whole life, and because it’s a deformity that’s been there so long you haven’t even thought to pray about it, but today God’s healing your spine for you and you’re going to know it. Your freedom to move is going to change.”
Jeane raised her hands and said, "'I accept that. I so accept that. I claim that for me.' And I just sat there, and the pain left, left that side of my body. It was intense. It left. And I just sat quietly, just so thankful that my God hears my prayers.” Jeane started moving her head and back without pain. Then she got out of her chair and started walking around and still, no pain.
She recalls, “I was just kinda stunned because I hadn't asked God for healing. I just asked for strength to get through the day. So, to stand up straight and walk into my kitchen without holding onto the door jams, without worrying I'm going to get a dizzy spell is like taking a trip to heaven. That was euphoric, euphoric.”
Jeane had no more issues with her back and has returned to her normal, active self: enjoying life and taking time to smell the flowers.
She says, “I'm happy again. I'm outgoing again. And I just love getting up in the morning. And when I get up, I thank the Lord for getting me up. Is that not awesome?!! Is that not awesome?!” But the biggest thing she loves is sharing how her healing has changed her prayers.
She says, “If you expect, you have to live like you expect it. I would put things to God from the standpoint that ‘If this be Your will,’ You can't live life abundantly if you're crippled and in pain and depressed. So, I changed the way I prayed by saying, ‘I know it is Your will that I be healthy and strong and resilient and emotionally stable’. As Christians, we have to anticipate the healing, anticipate the abundance, anticipate whatever the prayer is and live in that space.”
