Pain, Pills and Prayer

Sales of painkilling pills have grown by more than 500 percent in Central and South Florida over the last decade, according to an Associated Press analysis of Drug Enforcement Agency statistics. Overdose deaths and crime have grown along with the pill boom.

In a recent article about the campaign to control the prescription pill epidemic in this part of Florida,  noted that "...community partners are critical in the fight against prescription abuse."

In my experience, prayer is one of the most powerful partners any community can have. I just now Googled "pain and prayer." There were 11,300,000 results. 

One conclusion this may point to is that pills don't really "kill" pain. If they did, Google probably wouldn't be so packed with results from the pain and prayer search. As pills are temporarily dulling pain, they are, at the same time, causing addiction, desperation, despair, crime and unnecessary death. 

Several generations of my family have experienced relief from pain, not through drugs, but through prayer alone. We've seen the pain of war wounds, accidents, disease, poisonous insects, plants and sea creatures healed through prayer. In all these cases, the pain was not just dulled temporarily, it actually disappeared permanently. You might say it was "killed" or better still... healed.

Here are a few examples of how prayer actually works to eliminate pain permanently. The first is the experience of a woman with severe back pain. The second is the experience of a woman bitten by a deadly scorpion in a foreign country. Both are examples of the kind of relief people are looking for... and finding through prayer.

1. You don't have to live with pain

2. Scorpion bite healed through prayer

As Floridians and others are searching for answers to the pain pill epidemic, prayer will be a powerful partner. And the power of prayer will continue to offer permanent answers to open-minded seekers.