Raising the Dead: Dr. Chauncey Crandall Recalls 2006 Miracle

Dr. Chauncey Crandall

Jeff Markin was a dead man. In fact, he was officially declared dead at 8:05 a.m. in a Florida hospital emergency room.

The date was Oct. 20, 2006.

Only 53 years old, Markin was a big, burly, ordinary guy, a mechanic by trade. And he wasn’t a religious man by any means.

Heart specialist Dr. Chauncey Crandall was attending to his patients when he was summoned to the emergency room. He knew his presence on the scene was not only a last resort, but also most likely a lost cause.

Markin’s heart rhythm had flat-lined with cardiac arrest from a massive heart attack. A full 40 minutes had come and gone since his heart beat last. His pupils were fixed and dilated—he’d been “down” too long.

By the time Crandall arrived at the emergency room, Markin’s heart had already been shocked six times with the defibrillator. Just to make sure, his non-beating heart received a seventh shock, also to no avail. Rounds of medication and other efforts had all failed to revive the patient.

Markin’s lips, fingers and toes had literally turned black with death from a lack of oxygen.

There was no doubt—he was dead.

After Markin died, nearly everyone left the room. Nobody wants to remain around the smells and specter of death.

While a nurse prepared Markin’s lifeless body for the morgue, Crandall remained in the room to write up his final report. Then, once he completed his paperwork, he headed toward the door to return to his patients.

Standing in the door’s threshold, however, he was overcome with a strong feeling—a deep-seated sense that God wanted him to turn around and pray for Markin.

At first, Crandall—a man of science—was somewhat reluctant, even embarrassed. He felt foolish. But the request from God came to Crandall again, even more compelling this time. So he felt called to heed the message. As Crandall put it, he felt like “God’s intercom.”

And even though the words Crandall said came through him, he had no sense of devising them—they poured from him of their own accord.

“Father God,” Crandall prayed, “I cry out for this man’s soul. If he does not know You as his Lord and Savior, raise him from the dead now, in Jesus’ name.”

Then another strange thing happened. Involuntarily, Crandall’s right arm shot up in a gesture of prayer and praise.

At that moment, the ER doctor came back into the room, and Crandall ordered him to give Markin what seemed like one more useless shock from the defibrillator. At first reluctant, the doctor finally did as Crandall asked and applied the defibrillator.

Immediately, the machine registered a perfect heartbeat. Markin started breathing on his own. His black, cyanotic toes and fingers twitched. Soon, he began to mumble.

Jeff Markin had returned from the dead. And Dr. Chauncey Crandall would never be the same again.

Dr. Crandall prays for a woman

Life-Transforming Story

Crandall’s story doesn't end with Markin’s second chance at life. It’s actually what happened earlier that proves even more compelling.

Historically, Crandall kept his conventional Christian faith and his medical practice separate—until June 2000, when he was confronted with the worst nightmare a parent can face: his son Chad’s life-threatening illness.

Eleven-year-old Chad and his twin brother, Christian, were happy and athletic all-American boys born to Crandall and his gorgeous high-school-sweetheart wife, Deborah. Chad’s diagnosis of a deadly form of leukemia hit like a bombshell.

"Heal My Son"

After the diagnosis, Dr. Crandall cut down his medical duties so he could learn more about the treatment of leukemia—and research what the Bible says about healing.

He sought like-minded Christians in his area but was disappointed to find that most of them did not truly believe in the power of prayer to heal. So Crandall had to travel the world and take some unusual paths in his quest for supernatural healing through Christ.

Surely there were those who still believed in God’s power to heal through prayer.

A Quest for Christ

Of course, Crandall did not neglect modern medicine for Chad. He sought out the best doctors, the best medicine and the best facilities in the country. Yet it wasn’t enough.

So he became bold in his spiritual enthusiasm.

Crandall found that Chad’s illness taught him how to fight the spiritual battle every Christian faces and that there is a certain privilege in desperation. As Crandall will tell you, “The physical and the spiritual go together.”

Soul Healing, Body Healing

During his son’s illness, Crandall realized how important it is to stay in shape and take care of yourself. God has work for you to do—and illness will only present a roadblock to your spiritual growth.

As Crandall puts it, “It’s important as God’s servants to honor the body as God’s temple. Otherwise, we give the devil an easy opportunity to shorten our service to God.”

Additionally, Crandall came to realize just how much the physical and spiritual are intertwined. The Lord told him, “I’ve given you a platform as a physician to win the lost for Christ.”

Crandall knows he still has much work to do as the “Christian physician.”

Dr. Chauncey Crandall is the author of Raising the Dead, in which readers take a walk in his shoes to discover how the grace of God can help overcome disease; how prayer, praise and thanksgiving can do wonders for stress and even eliminate the need for medications; and the problems with and causes of “why me” thinking when something bad happens to you or a loved one.

He Wasn't Cured, But He Was Healed!

Dr. Tony Campolo

Tony Campolo tells a story about being in a church in Oregon where he was asked to pray for a man who had cancer. Campolo prayed boldly for the man's healing. 

That next week he got a telephone call from the man's wife. She said, "You prayed for my husband. He had cancer." 

Campolo thought when he heard her use the past tense verb that his cancer had been eradicated! But before he could think much about it she said, "He died." Compolo felt terrible. 

But she continued, "Don't feel bad. When he came into that church that Sunday he was filled with anger. He knew he was going to be dead in a short period of time, and he hated God 

He was 58 years old, and he wanted to see his children and grandchildren grow up. He was angry that this all-powerful God didn't take away his sickness and heal him. He would lie in bed and curse God. 

The more his anger grew towards God, the more miserable he was to everybody around him. It was an awful thing to be in his presence." 

But the lady told Compolo, "After you prayed for him, a peace had come over him and a joy had come into him. 

Tony, the last three days have been the best days of our lives. We've sung. We've laughed. We've read Scripture. We prayed. Oh, they've been wonderful days. And I called to thank you for laying your hands on him and praying for healing." 

And then she said something incredibly profound. 

She said, "He wasn't cured, but he was healed." 

Fact is, God can heal not just physically but also emotionally, spiritually, and financially. 

If you are... 

...Sick and tired of your financial situation. 
...Hurting because of bad relationships. 
...Feeling hopeless with your health problems. 
...Stagnant in your faith in God. 

Take the time now to read and memorize scriptures. You'll be surprised how it will heal you completely. 

Don & Dawn

Proof of the Healing Power of Prayer

For the devout, there never has been any question that prayer has the power to heal. Now, more and more medical research from leading hospitals and universities across the United States has shown conclusively that a belief in God really is good for you, and can make you healthier, happier, and induce you to live longer to boot.

"Studies have shown prayer can prevent people from getting sick, and when they do get sick, prayer can help them get better faster," Duke University's Dr. Harold G. Koenig tells Newsmax.

An exhaustive analysis of more than 1,500 reputable medical studies "indicates people who are more religious and pray more have better mental and physical health," Koenig says. And out of 125 studies that looked at the link between health and regular worship, 85 showed regular churchgoers live longer.

Dr. Koenig, director of Duke's Center for Spirituality, Theology and Health, and the author of several authoritative books on faith and healing, says a striking study published in the Southern Medical Journal last year demonstrated that prayer has a remarkable effect on patients with hearing and visual deficiencies. After prayer sessions, "They showed significant improvements based on audio and visual tests," Koenig says.

What's more, he says, "The benefits of devout religious practice, particularly involvement in a faith community and religious commitment, are that people cope better. In general, they cope with stress better, they experience greater well-being because they have more hope, they're more optimistic, they experience less depression, less anxiety, and they commit suicide less often." He adds, "They have stronger immune systems, lower blood pressure, and probably better cardiovascular functioning."

"The proof of the power of prayer is overwhelming", says researcher and writer Tom Knox, a one-time atheist who became a regular worshipper after doing in-depth study of the medical benefits of faith. "What I discovered astonished me. Over the past 30 years a growing, and largely unnoticed, body of scientific work shows religious belief is medically, socially, and psychologically beneficial".

Study after study backs up the benefits of having faith, especially in prolonging life.

In 2006, population researchers at the University of Texas discovered that the more often you go to church, the longer you live. "Religious attendance is associated with adult mortality in a graded fashion", says Knox. "There is a seven-year difference in life expectancy between those who never attend church and those who attend weekly."

The American Journal of Public Health studied nearly 2,000 older Californians for five years and found that those who attended religious services were 36 percent less likely to die during that period than those who didn't.

A study of nearly 4,000 older adults for the U.S. Journal of Gerontology revealed that atheists had a significantly increased chance of dying over a six-year period than the faithful. Crucially, religious people lived longer than atheists even if they didn't go regularly to a place of worship.

Prayer intercession also has been shown to have a positive impact across a wide range of diseases and disorders.

The American Society of Hypertension established in 2006 that churchgoers have lower blood pressure than non-believers. Scientists have also revealed believers recover from breast cancer quicker than non-believers, have better outcomes from coronary disease and rheumatoid arthritis, and are less likely to have children with meningitis.

A massive 12-month study from a Kansas City hospital showed patients admitted with heart trouble did better when somebody was praying for them. Amazingly, the patients were not told people were praying for them. Volunteers from a local church were given the first name of a patient on a piece of paper and asked to pray for that person.

Those patients had fewer complications than those who weren't prayed for. Researchers said they did not have a scientific explanation for the outcome.

Research at San Francisco General Hospital looked at the effect of prayer on 393 cardiac patients. Half were prayed for by strangers who had only the patients' names. Those patients had fewer complications, fewer cases of pneumonia, and needed less drug treatment. They also got better quicker and left the hospital earlier.

Two studies at the University of California San Francisco Medical Center showed prayer could be a positive benefit for AIDS victims, too. Patients not prayed for spent six times as long in hospital as those who received prayers and got three times as many illnesses.

An arthritis treatment center in Florida used prayer sessions to try to help patients suffering pain. A study says they showed significant overall improvement for up to one year later.

In a study of nearly 92,000 people in Maryland, people who attended church once or more a week had 50 percent fewer deaths from coronary artery disease, 56 percent fewer deaths from emphysema, 74 percent fewer deaths from cirrhosis, and 53 percent fewer suicides.

Concluded Knox: "Atheists can sneer at faith all they like, but they can't assume science is on their side".

http://www.newsmaxhealth.com/headline_health/prayer_healing_power/2012/04/06/443812.html