When Faced with Terminal Illness

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My friend Harry DeCamp was given the diagnosis of terminal cancer. He was sent home to die. Harry was a believer, but not a churchgoer; in fact, not even a church member. Day after day, he stared hopelessly into the television screen, awaiting death. Then a friend sent him a get-well card that said, “Have faith in God.” This made Harry think. “Is there really power in faith?”

Another friend sent him a copy of Guideposts magazine, which told of a woman who had been healed of a problem much the same as his own. Harry began praying, and his religious ideas were so uncomplicated that he was able to pray with faith—like a child—as the Bible advises.  As a result of his prayers and faith, an idea came. He began to visualize or image the healthy white cells within his own body cascading down from his shoulders and doing battle with the unhealthy cells. He says that he did this at least a hundred times a day, praying, believing, imaging.  One day he became suddenly hungry, where previously he had no appetite. He began to eat heartily. He felt better. After many weeks of visualization, his astonished doctors told him that the disease symptoms had disappeared.  I asked Harry how this all came about. “Through faith in God, positive faith in God,” was his reply.

Here are five suggestions to help you develop a positive faith in God:

1. Affirm faith every day: “I believe, I believe, I believe.”

2. When you are out of ideas, turn to faith. God will supply you with new and better ones.

3. Remember that God uses your mind to release insights when faith clears away the mental blocks.

4. Practice faith in the Lord, for it is the greatest power for your positive use.

5. Put your life completely in God’s hands; trust and believe always. Miracles can happen.

Perhaps we do not fully appreciate the enormous power of faith. If we really understood that power we would not let ourselves be defeated by so many things. The Bible writer very well understood the type of half-faith that most people have when he recorded these words of Jesus: “According to your faith be it unto you” (Matthew 9:29). A little faith gets little results; big faith gets big results.

Excerpted from The Rewards of Positive Living by Norman Vincent Peale. Copyright © 1981 by Peale Center for Christian Living.