the power of HOPE

A cancer patient was told she had a slim chance of survival. With justifiable defiance she replied, "Statistics are for dead people. I'm not dead." When I served as Chaplain to the Oncology ward at Brooke Army Medical Center in Texas, I thought I'd be encouraging patients; most of them encouraged me. They shared their stories of hope and courage. There's no such thing as false hope. I discovered that when people are confident in themselves, their treatment, and in God, their bodies often cooperate with the healing process. While no one gets off the planet alive, it seems that we can combat disease and possibly live longer and happier through hope.

Faith in God is an important part of healing. A medical doctor remarked that to withhold prayer was like withholding a necessary drug or surgical procedure. Faith is trusting God, the Great Physician, in spite of our confusion, in spite of unanswered questions, all the time knowing that God loves us and wants what's best for us, even when we're unable to understand the purpose of our suffering. God may not change our situation always, but He can change us. Faith accepts the outcome/answer to our prayers as what is the best possible outcome, because God's answers are wiser than our prayers.