Never Underestimate the Power of Prayer
My neighbors, Peter and Susan, have an eight-year-old grandson who is going through health challenges. Max was diagnosed with liver cancer last year. He had some tumors on his lungs also. The lung tumors were removed, and he received a liver transplant. After chemotherapy and months in the hospital, he was declared cancer free just a few months ago. It seemed their prayers had been answered.
About two weeks ago, he began having headaches and a lump near his eye. He was diagnosed with a different type of cancer. Doctors weren’t sure what was going on. They now believe he has a different form of cancer that is very aggressive and untreatable. Of course, they are giving him chemotherapy before they send him home.
Peter told me that hundreds of people are praying for Max. We agreed that once the doctors say you are incurable, it is an unquestionable miracle when you get well. We’ll see.
I had coffee with a friend a couple of weeks ago. She told me about her mother whose uterus was healed with prayer. After that miracle, her son was healed by prayer from being a crying, spastic infant. The healing was immediate.
A patient told me that he was in the audience of a faith healer. The healer looked at the audience and pointed in his direction. Then the healer said, “Someone over there is being healed of a stomach problem.” He said that he felt his stomach move and he stopped having issues. He went to the same healer another time but wasn’t healed of his second problem.
When my wife went for cataract surgery, her surgeon went around the room and asked his patients if it was alright if he prayed for them. I still smile at one patient’s reply, “I was hoping that wouldn’t be necessary.”
What about the times when prayer seems to fail? A patient told me she lost faith in the power of prayer when her son died in spite of her prayers. Certainly, that happens. We will all experience a physical death at some point. What if we evaluated prayer the same way we evaluate medicine? It is very rare for a medicine to help everyone. A psychiatrist told me that if she had a medicine that helped 50% of patients it would be a miracle drug. Medicine is compared to a control of placebo or doing nothing. Medicine doesn’t have to help everyone; it just has to outperform the control group.
Some will point to Max and say that prayer failed. Doctors are sending him home without hope. Yet, Max did do better for a while and doctors said he was cancer free. Was that due to the power of prayer, the power of medicine, or the combination? Doctors of Medicine have made a heroic effort. Medical failure is admitted. It remains to be seen how Max does. Never underestimate the power of prayer.
(Today’s Power of Prayer in the religion section inspired the Power of Intention post in the personal growth section.)