“I Don’t Believe in Prayer”

The letter was short. “Dear Sean, do you believe prayer works? I don’t. Please pray I survive my surgery today.” Signed, Anonymous.

Dear Anonymous, before they wheel you back, a few things:

New York, December, 2004, a national survey of 1,100 physicians, conducted by HCD Research and the Louis Finkelstein Institute found that 74 percent of doctors believe prayer-miracles have occurred in their career; 73 percent believe they can occur at any time.

Duke University doctors recently studied 20 heart patients. The patients didn’t know it, but their names were sent all over the world. To places like Nepal, Jerusalem, Baltimore, etc. Randomly selected people prayed for participants’ recovery. Patients performed approximately 50 to 100 percent better than patients who received no prayer.

At San Francisco General Hospital’s Coronary Care Unit, 393 patients participated in a double blind study on prayer. Participants remained blind throughout the study to prevent bias.

Those who received prayer had less need for mechanical ventilators; required less medications, diuretics, and antibiotics; required less CPR; reported less occurrences of pulmonary edema, angina, congestive heart failure, and cardiac events. There were significantly fewer deaths.

In a study of 999 cardiac patients from Mid America Heart Institute of St. Luke’s Hospital, those who were unknowingly prayed for fared 90 percent better than heart patients who didn’t receive prayers.

The American Heart Journal studied the effect of prayer on 150 patients undergoing angioplasty with stent insertion. Participants were randomly assigned for prayer. The “prayed for” group reported significantly fewer complications than the control group.

Elisabeth Targ, a doctor at the California Pacific Medical Center in San Francisco, studied the efficacy of prayer on 40 AIDS patients. Half of patients who received prayers from places as far away as Alaska and Puerto Rico required fewer hospitalizations.

In two similar studies that same year, involving different AIDS patients, Targ reported better health in patients who received prayer than in those who didn’t.

New York, December, 2004, a national survey of 1,100 physicians, conducted by HCD Research and the Louis Finkelstein Institute found that 74 percent of doctors believe miracles have occurred in their career; 73 percent believe that can occur at any time.

In a 2001 infertility study, U.S., Canadian and Australian groups prayed for women in Seoul, Korea, who were using in-vitro fertilization. The “prayed for” group had a 50 percent higher pregnancy rate.

And lastly. A medical report by Clarissa Romez, David Zaritzky, Joshua W. Brown, from Global Medical Research Institute, and Indiana University, documents a two-week-old infant’s hospitalization for vomiting. After undergoing stomach surgery, he was diagnosed with gastroparesis.

The infant required a gastrostomy tube (g-tube) and a jejunostomy tube (j-tube) for feeding.

For 16 years, the teen was dependent on g- and j-tube feeding, and could not tolerate oral feeding.

In November, 2011, the boy was listening to a church speaker. In the message, the speaker reported his own story of an accident that severed his intestines. While hearing this account, the teenager felt a pulsating in his abdomen. He reports that “It felt as if God was preparing me…”

After the sermon, the speaker talked with the boy, and they compared scars. The speaker then asked the family to gather and pray. They placed hands on the boy, who cannot recall how long the prayer took, but mentions that he was only prayed for once.

He reported an electric shock starting from his shoulder and shooting into his stomach. Directly after the experience, he was able to tolerate oral feedings. Four months later, both g- and j-tubes were removed. He did not require any further treatment. All symptoms were resolved.

If you have a prayer-miracle story, tell me about it here.

Because Anonymous needs to hear it.