And the prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well; the Lord will raise him up…Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. (James 5:15-16, NIV)
One morning, while making postpartum rounds, I came across a young first-time mother who had tested positive for methamphetamine. Even though I was short on time and there was a long list of patients I had to round on, I felt I needed to talk to her about drugs. I sat down on a chair next to her bed
Before I could bring up the subject, she told me that she had a confession to make. She said she did use drugs in the past, but now that she had a baby, she really wanted to quit. She had tried quitting before, but her friends always got her back into the habit. When asked if she attended church, she said she used to, and that she still believed in God. I told her that she would never be able to quit drugs on her own; that only God can help her stay away from drugs.
We talked about starting back to church, making a new set of friends, and staying away from her old friends who used drugs. Then I asked her if I could pray for her, and she said,”Yes.” I prayed that the Lord would give her courage and strength to overcome this drug habit and that she would develop a relationship with him. At the end of the visit, she thanked me profusely.
At her six weeks’ postpartum visit, she was beaming with delight as she told me that she had started going back to church and that she was making new friends who were not on drugs. Our prayer was answered.
The Bible encourages us to pray for one another. How many times has the Lord directed to our practices patients who needed spiritual healing? And did we miss the opportunity to be an instrument of His to connect the patients with Him? You will find that, somehow, in spite of taking time to pray with your patients in the midst of a busy day, your day at the office will still end on time, and you will be blessed for it. Your world will be a better place because you took time to pray.
– Caleb Liem, LLUSM class of 1970