A minister at the Cancer Treatment Centers of America says his experience shows that patients with a strong faith in God are better equipped to deal with chronic illnesses than those lacking such faith.
Numerous medical studies suggest that religious beliefs have a beneficial effect on overall health and well-being. Percy McCray is director of the Pastoral Care Department at the CTCA in Zion, Illinois. He says he has witnessed first hand how faith enables patients suffering from chronic illnesses to recover more quickly and with fewer complications.
“Without the faith factor,” McCray says, “many of those people would be long dead and have given up hope because of what medicine and science and its limitations can say to people.”
But the minister says faith in God can transcend the physical realities of chronic illness and help suffering individuals discover a renewed connection to their Creator.
McCray says as soon as patients are admitted to CTCA facilities, they are provided with spiritual support and offered the opportunity to participate in individual and group prayer sessions. It is not uncommon, he says, to find doctors praying with patients at the cancer treatment centers.
The pastoral care director says several members of the CTCA staff take a very faith-centered approach to healing. “We lay hands on the sick here. We anoint the sick. We have several doctors here who incorporate their spiritual faith and their practice of medicine. And,” the director stresses, “probably for the first time in a typical hospital, there is an environment that is created where people can stand and openly talk about their faith in God, in Jesus Christ, [and] the Holy Spirit.”
McCray recently developed a website, AlongSideMinistries.com, where cancer patients can explore resources related to faith and healing.
(This article courtesy of Agape Press).
