Several years ago the American Heart Association published the results of a remarkable scientific study. In 1998 Dr. Randy Bird did a study of 393 coronary care patients at Duke University Hospital. Dr. Bird is not a Christian and this is not a Christian study. But it asked the question: “Does prayer have any impact on patient’s healing?” Without the patients knowing it, people were asked to pray for only half of the heart patients. The groups were comparable in age & severity of medical conditions. The people praying were given the names of the patients and their diagnosis and were asked to pray everyday for their healing and recovery. Dr. Bird compared the outcome of each group and found those patients who were prayed for did better than those who were not. It was amazing! Everything from recovery rates, hospital stay, length of medication, type of procedure needed, was better for the group that was prayed for. Just to prove this was not a Christian study they observed that distance of those praying for the patients made no difference.
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