Praying Our Way Back to Wellness

Suddenly, rather than hoping to get well, the very idea of which embodies an element of failure—you hope you get well, but realistically you may not—you dwell in faith that divine intelligence made you perfect. By tearing your dominant thoughts away from sickness and bringing them instead into alignment with that ideal of divine perfection, you begin nurturing a quiet expectation that healing is now possible. In fact, it may always have been possible, you just didn't tap into the source.

An oncologist friend of mine once told me that many times the single biggest obstacle to his patients getting well is the fact that they don't believe they can.

So this is what we discussed over lunch, the Hollywood movie star and I. Change. Surrender. Prayer. Faith. Respect for the body. How healing begins on the inside, with the acceptance of our divine connection, and works its way out. There's no magic pill. Pills only suppress the symptoms anyway; they don't tackle the root of the problem.

And you know what?

He didn't want to hear. I was shocked. Change sounded hard, he said. Sitting still in meditation and prayer was a huge challenge and he was far too busy. And quite honestly he enjoyed his toxic food way too much; he didn't want to give it up.

It was then I realized that it wasn't healing he was after, in the sense of a return to inner harmony so that the body could repair itself, but a miracle. He'd tried every quick fix that modern medicine could throw at him; now he wanted the spiritual quick fix too, with the minimum of effort and discipline.

God speaks in a host of ways: sometimes it's in a whisper, and sometimes He's just plain yelling at us. Many times when we get ill, I'm convinced it's because He's been yelling at us for the longest time and we failed to listen. In the end, disease was perhaps the only way spirit could get our attention. Prayer restores our connection to Source. It allows us to tune back into the signal we've been ignoring for so long. It's not a quick fix; rather, it represents a slow return to centeredness and harmony, to our natural state of being, the way God would have us be, bringing wellness from the inside out.

In that sense, prayer, love, faith, self-respect, and positive thoughts, engaged in now, may well be the most sensible precautionary measures we have. Truly, vitamins for the soul. Keeping us healthy and happy well into old age.