How Faith Can Help Cancer Patients' Journey to Recovery
Actor Terry Crews’ wife, Rebecca, 58, restarts her long-awaited Monday Night prayer sessions after a hiatus from her weekly ritual.
Crews says her faith was strengthened as she battled stage 1 breast cancer. She is “cancer-free” after undergoing a double mastectomy (removal of both breasts).
A study published in Cancer includes data that found “69% of cancer patients reported praying for their health” compared to “only 45% of the general U.S. population.”
New York City Presbyterian Pastor Tom Evans previously spoke with SurvivorNet about how faith can help people cope with the complex emotions that come with cancer.
“It’s important to reach out in a simple prayer to God, even if you’ve never prayed before, you don’t know what to say, a heartfelt plea, ‘God, help me, be with me,’” Pastor Evans told SurvivorNet.
The wife of actor Terry Crews, Rebecca, is a woman of faith who doesn’t hesitate to pray whenever possible. When she battled breast cancer, among the people and things helping her cope was her faith. After a hiatus, Rebecca, 58, told her loyal social media followers that she is restarting her “Monday Night Prayer” sessions.
“It’s Pastor Rebecca Crews, and I’m so excited to tell you something new we’re doing,” Crews said in her Instagram video message.
“As you may recall, we were in Hollywood last year before we took a break, and now it’s time for us to come back together…God is moving saints. Come on out and join us; God Bless,” Crews said in her brief message to the delight of her online followers.
Crews has been closely linked to her faith in God and typically hosts prayer sessions with her followers on Monday nights.
“Faith without hope is not faith…faith is the expectation of goodness and light coming to you from an eternal place of grace,” she said in a previous prayer message.
WATCH: Actor Terry Crews and his wife Rebecca on addressing inequities in healthcare.
Crews knows all about adversity and what it takes to power through it. She was diagnosed with stage 1 breast cancer in 2020 following a mammogram and ultrasound.
Stage 1 breast cancers are relatively small; they either have not spread to the lymph nodes or only a small area of cancer has spread to the sentinel lymph node. Treatment will likely be surgery, radiation following surgery, chemotherapy, or other therapy.
NEW YORK, NEW YORK – SEPTEMBER 10: Rebecca King-Crews and Terry Crews are seen in Midtown during New York Fashion Week on September 10, 2021, in New York City. (Photo by Santiago Felipe/Getty Images for Terry Crews)
Crews underwent a double mastectomy procedure that involved removing both breasts to get rid of cancer. The procedure may also be a preventative measure for women at a higher risk of developing breast cancer.
“A double mastectomy typically takes about two hours for the cancer part of the operation, the removing of the tissue,” Dr. Elisa Port, Chief of Breast Surgery at Mount Sinai Health System, told SurvivorNet.
“The real length, the total length of the surgery, can often depend on what type of reconstruction [a patient] has,” Dr. Port added.
During Rebecca Crews’ cancer journey, she gave large amounts of credit to her faith in God and her loving and supportive husband, Terry, for helping her fight her cancer.
Rebecca Crews remains free of the disease following her cancer treatment.
Since beating cancer, her faith in herself and God has been strengthened. She previously stated earlier this year during a prayer session that sometimes adversity is what we need to grow.
“Sometimes dark and difficult times are exactly what we need to help us grow and become stronger. They challenge us to dig deep within ourselves and find the strength to keep going, even when we feel like giving up,” she said in an Instagram post.
WATCH: A Sacred and Blessed Calling
Why Faith Offers Cancer Patients Hope
A study published in “Cancer” includes data that found “69% of cancer patients reported praying for their health” compared to “only 45% of the general U.S. population.”
The two add more context to the impact faith has on cancer patients.
“A person’s faith or spirituality provides a means for coping with illness and reaching a deeper kind of inner healing,” Kneier and Silberman said.
“Coping means different things to different people: it can involve finding answers to the questions that illness raises, it can mean seeking comfort for the fears and pain that illness brings, and it can mean learning how to find a sense of direction at a time of illness. Religious teachings can help a person cope in all of these dimensions,” Kneier and Silberman continued.
WATCH: Three-time cancer survivor shares how her faith helped her during cancer.
New York City Presbyterian Pastor Tom Evans tells SurvivorNet about the importance of finding ways to cope with the complex web of feelings you may be experiencing after a challenging health diagnosis, such as cancer.
“It’s important to reach out in a simple prayer to God, even if you’ve never prayed before, you don’t know what to say, a heartfelt plea, ‘God, help me, be with me,’” Pastor Evans told SurvivorNet.
“You can reach out to God, and you can reach out to people, your friends and family, and say, ‘I can’t do this on my own. I need you.’ “It’s in that willingness to be open and to receive that we can find something deeper that we never would’ve encountered without this hardship,” Evans continued.
