As we all know, cancer is one of our deadliest diseases,
and if you have prayed for cancer patients,
you have discovered that it is also one of our most
difficult and mysterious ailments to pray for.
At times, we have seen amazing results when we have
prayed and occasionally we have actually
seen tumors shrink before our very eyes. But we also
need to be honest and say that it doesn’t
always go that well.
At other times, the cancer remains but, nevertheless,
the pain diminishes or disappears. Sometimes
with prayer the harmful side effects of the chemo or
radiation treatment are reduced or even
eliminated: the patient’s appetite remains normal,
the hair does not fall out, and his/her strength and
vigor remains.
Still another wonderful effect of prayer: a person
who is given three months to live, lives on another
two years beyond what the doctors predicted.Most wonderful
of all: at the moment of death, the
patient is in great peace; some seem to experience
a vision of angels, or better yet, of Jesus.
And so, even when there isn’t a total physical
healing, a notable partial healing takes place. It is
no
small thing if the pain goes away, while the patient
remains at peace.
From what we have learned about cancer, there are several
things I would like to share.
1. Inner healing. Apparently, all of us have cancer
cells in our body but usually our immune systems
deal with them, especially when we are younger. But,
if we suffer a severe loss or emotional trauma,
the immune system can become depressed and our bodies
fail to contain or destroy the unhealthy
cells. For instance, some studies indicate that the
most dangerous period comes for a married man if
his wife dies before he does: his desire to live is
weakened by his mourning and loneliness. His body
picks up on this sadness and stops fighting against
the force of diseases, such as cancer.
The practical application of this is simply: if you
are praying to heal cancer, you may suspect that an
inner healing – a healing of the memories – may
also be very helpful. It will take time from the
moment the emotional blow first strikes until the cancer
grows large enough for us to notice it,
perhaps a year. So if you are praying to heal cancer,
check and see if the patient suffered an
emotional trauma about a year before the onset of the
cancer. Was a wife deserted by her husband
– or vice versa? Did a beloved family member die – such
as a child, a mother or a father?
Praying to heal the pain of that loss or rejection
may be crucial to the physical healing of the cancer.
2. Soaking prayer. Everything we have learned about
spending time in prayer specially pertains to
praying for cancer. Occasionally, someone is healed
immediately (as was Judith, my wife, 1979), but
ordinarily the healing takes time – what we call “soaking
prayer.” As I see it, soaking prayer applied
to cancer is like God’s radiation treatment; the
longer our hands are held near the cancer site, the
more the cancer cells wither away, while God strengthens
the healthy cells and the immune system
to fight back. (Occasionally, too, there is a “spirit
of infirmity” or of “cancer” that needs
to be
confronted and cast out.) Praying for cancer can be
a long-time process. Just as we do not expect a
cancer patient to be cured by one chemo treatment,
neither do we ordinarily expect that one single,
brief prayer will be sufficient. Usually, when we have
seen cancer healed through prayer, the
patient’s family and church have really persevered
in continuous prayer. (The wonderful thing about
prayer is that it has no harmful side effects, as do
continued chemo and radiation treatments.)
3. When cancer seems to return. I don’t like to
talk about people “losing” their healing,
as if the sick
person is to blame. I have known one person, at least,
who seemed to be dramatically and instantly
healed of stomach cancer. And then, a year later, the
cancer returned – this time in the lungs.
I think the best way to explain the mysterious relapse
is that almost all the cancer cells were
eradicated. But a few unhealthy cells were left, taking
a year for them to multiply. What was missing
was follow-up prayer. We rejoiced in her total healing
but it wasn’t as total as we thought. And so we
neglected to keep on praying as a precaution; in those
days it almost seemed that we were lacking in
faith if we prayed again, after her apparently miraculous
healing. But just as in the natural order, we
return to the physician for a check-up after an operation,
we likewise need to be spiritually prudent
and continue to pray, “Give us this day our daily
bread.”
4. How to Pray. The way to pray for cancer ordinarily
has two elements in it. One is the prayer part
where we ask God to heal the cancer or we command the
cancer cells to stop multiplying. This takes
just a short time.
Then comes the laying on of hands, which is like God’s
own radiation treatment. This part can take
plenty of time. The longer the cancer is held in God’s
force-field, the more healing takes place. Sick
cells die, while healthy cells take on added life.
If you pray in tongues, this would be a good time to
do it. The laying-on of hands can take anywhere from
a minute to an hour or more. It can be
repeated every day (in a family especially, where husbands
and wives pray together) or every week
or so, if they visit a prayer minister. In churches
or prayer groups, it is usually not feasible to spend
a
lot of time praying for one individual, so this is
one reason we at CHM stress that every church and
prayer group needs a small, dedicated group of prayer
ministers who can spend time in praying with
the sick.
Above all, as Jesus encourages us, “Pray continually
and never lose heart!” (Luke 18:1).
