Where Medicine and Prayer Collide

Dr. Larry Dossey has been writing about the impact of prayer on our health for many years.  He’s conducted studies and interviewed thousands of people in his travels looking for how prayer and medicine can survive and thrive hand-in-hand.  I believe one of the most recently publicized events showing how the two reinforce the benefits of each practice is the story of football player Kevin Everett.

 Kevin Everett was playing the game he loves most when during one game he collided with a player from the opposing team.  In interviews he shares his experience laying on the ground, unable to move and hearing his teammates telling him to get up.  In what may have been a precedent setting  moment of television coverage, the network showed all the players from both teams surrounding Everett, all kneeling or heads bowed praying for his safety and health.  There was division between rivals, just everyone on the field, in the stands and at home watching television pulling for Everett’s recovery.

The story doesn’t end there because we’re looking at the intersection between medicine and prayer and that’s where the medical team takes the ball and continue running down the field.  The surgeons recommended that they immediately lower Everett’s body temperature in hopes of limiting or reducing the swelling that could possibly leave his at best paralyzed and worst case scenario, dead.

Today due to modern medical technology, research on spinal injury and the presence of prayer Kevin Everett is walking without any apparatus.  He’s not back to his pre-injury state, but his gratitude is evident.  He knows that it wasn’t one thing that brought him from the brink of death or permanent disability back to an impressive state of health, but the synergy that takes place when body, mind and spirit are all working on the same team.  He knows that his recovery is not because of a few, but because of many.

Who do you have on your team?  Who is sending you those good vibes from in the medical community and from your personal circle of support?  How will you engage Spirit to step in and take its rightful place as part of your treatment team?  Give yourself every possible advantage and engage all the possibilities.