Faith provides us with the ability to hope. It provides us with the ability to look beyond our circumstances and limitations, especially when battling sickness and/or disease. For years faith and medicine have been understood as competing entities when in reality we are learning that they work best when understood for what they are individually and how they can work together. 

00:10 Twanna introduces special guest Rev. Percy McCray, National Director of Faith Based Programs. 

01:33 Rev. McCray shares his story of his journey and how he ended up becoming the National Director of Faith Based programs at Cancer Treatment Center of America. 

03:36 Twanna asks Rev. McCray whether there is a conflict between faith and medicine. 

04:16 Rev. McCray presents that he believes there is a perceived conflict but the truth is there is no conflict at all. 

07:34  Rev. McCray explains that although it is not obvious, many doctors are people of faith but because of the credentials they stand on they may not proclaim it when working verbally but within themselves, many pray and counsel their patients. 

10:17 Twanna asks how faith potentially helps people experiencing COVID-19 and even cancer? 

13:00 Faith provides patients with the ability to look beyond their own circumstances and limitations. 

14:54 Twanna asks: how can we reconcile the fact as ministers that good people are getting something bad? 

19:26 Rev. McCray refers to Romans 8:28, and emphasizes the word all. All things, whether good or bad, God will work it for our good. 

20:28 Twanna shares how she believes God trusts certain people to suffer. 

20:36 Rev. McCray discusses how suffering is a part of the walk of a believer. 

22:19 Rev. McCray explains the connection between COVID-19 and cancer. 

25:33 How do you encourage people who are encouraging? Asks Twanna. 

28:07 Rev. McCray has to consistently remind his team that they are not the healer, they are to direct the people to the healer. 

29:20  Rev. McCray defines what makes CTCA different from any other place and that is the fact that they embrace the idea of integrative medicine. 

34:10 Rev. McCray closes the podcast in prayer. 

For video versions of episode 48 and onward visit us on Youtube.

Twanna Henderson: Welcome to T Time spiritual conversations for, with and about women. I'm your host, Twanna Henderson and I'm so excited about our podcasts on today. Today's topic is faith during the time of storms, and I'm so pleased to have our guests for today. Our guest is Reverend Percy McCray. Rev. McCray serves as the National Director of faith based programs for Cancer Treatment Centers of America and has been with them for the past 14 years. He is also the host of Health, Hope and Inspiration, which is actually an award winning podcast. It recently received the Best Digital Experiences in Faith and Religious communities from the National Religious Broadcasters Conference. Reverend McCray, welcome to T Time.

Rev. Percy McCray: Well, thank you, my dear. It is a privilege and an honor to be with you and your audience today.

Twanna Henderson: Thank you so much. Some of our listeners may not be aware that I'm actually a former Cancer Treatment Centers patient. And I want to share I want to give a shout out to CTC CTCA that my career was superb there. But Reverend, absolutely. But Rev. McCray, talk to us about the work or should I say ministry that you do for CTCA and more importantly, why?

Rev. Percy McCray: Yeah, I've been with the organization for quite a while now. And actually, it's 24 years. So I may have given you the wrong date, but I've been organization now over 20 years and started with CTCA very serendipitously I had just graduated from Bible college and in Tulsa, Oklahoma and my plans were to relocate back to Chicago, where I am a native on the south side. And I had an interesting engagement with someone who asked me who was working at Cancer Treatment Centers of America, which I did not know anything about at the time. Would I be interested in doing pastoral care ministry and beadside ministry inside of a hospital? And I knew very little about what is called chaplaincy work now, and I wasn't interested in that at all because I was very fixated on the idea of being a pastor and having my own church and I'm a third generation pastor on my mom's side of the family. So that was my my goal and my desire. And lo and behold, I sat down and had a conversation with the leadership there, and they hired me on the spot and scared me to death.

Twanna Henderson: Oh my goodness, wow!

Rev. Percy McCray: I really did not anticipate being responded to so favorably and really had to go home and kind of clear my head and refocus on, should I do this, and so I kind of made a wager with God. I said, Okay, if this works out, I'll do it for a little while. If not, then you know we're going to go back to what I thought was my plan A and so started with CTCA in Tulsa, Oklahoma, worked there for about eight months and then had an opportunity to transfer back home to the greater Chicagoland area and work at the Zion Illinois hospital, which is just north 45 miles north of Chicago, Illinois. And I worked in that building for 18 years. And then transfer to the corporate office, which is where I am now in Boca Raton, Florida. And I was promoted to the National Director of Faith Based Services. And so here I am over 20 years later, and I almost missed, almost got out of the will of God.

Twanna Henderson: Wow. Well, yeah, you did give me the wrong date. But 24 years, that's amazing. And, you know, for our listeners, you know, when you think about faith and hospitals, they really don't go together. And for me, that was one of the things that's so remarkable about CTCA. But talk to us about whether or not there is conflict between faith and science working together because for there to be a whole position where you are the national director of faith based programs for a hospital, that is not the norm.

Rev. Percy McCray: That is true. It's very unusual. And I've walked a very interesting path with regard to bridging the two worlds of faith and spirituality and medicine and science. And so to the to specifically to the question, is there a conflict? I think that there has been erroneously a perceived conflict, but in reality, there really is not a conflict. This is really about being able to understand a helpful and responsive and respective balance between and I'll use this term for the sake of distinction, the two disciplines faith and science, faith and religion, as a discipline as a focus as a school of thought, as an orientation. And science and medicine as a as a discipline actually have a lot in common one with another. I think the issue has been historically, unfortunately, a power struggle of who's in charge. And who has the last word who's dictating the terms of engagement. You've already expressed, you know, very generally the fact that you've gone through the doors of Cancer Treatment Centers of America that I'm proud to represent, and in the capacity as a pastor and as a faith based leader, where I was allowed to basically interact and intermingle with the the scientists and the doctors within the building, and see how could we merge the idea of allowing the best that medicine has to offer and also allow faith and spirituality to be part of that equation. And so when we were able to figure that out, I think first and foremost, it was about gaining the respect of those individuals who spend years learning their craft and developing their mind around medicine and science. The Bible says that every good and perfect gift comes from absove while they are light and medicine and science is a gift. It's a gift of God. And so when we, when we as faith people understand the correlation of that, that they didn't just think of the concept of biology and microbes, and, you know, enzymes and proteins on their own that came from a higher source of intellectual being, as a creator, that's God at the end of the day. And so once I was able to present myself in a very user friendly manner, that I was not a threat to what they were doing from a medical perspective. They were much able to respond and react to the fact that and as it turns out, many physicians are men and women of faith. Some of them may be rather quiet about it, but they have a strong many of them have a strong and abiding faith in God that they will allow to be amalgamated with their practice of medicine. So there really is not a conflict. I think that there's just a perceived conflict historically around control of who's in charge of a patient. Is the pastor in charge? Or is the doctor in charge? And the fact of the matter is neither one of them are in charge, God's in charge.

Twanna Henderson: Yes, absolutely. And, you know, we really don't often see a lot of doctors who are people of faith. I mean, it's just very rare. How do they manage the balance between science and religion?

Rev. Percy McCray: Well, I think what happens, you know, my 20 plus years has afforded me to first of all, to be part of the of the healthcare community in a way that I would have never been indoctrinated to that world. And I think that that's the first thing to understand that as people of faith, typically, we're very clandestine. You know, we typically only hang around other people of faith. And in some cases, only the people of our variation of our faith. And that's another T Time topic for another day and another session. But the fact of the matter is, is that, you know, in a very interesting way, I was able to walk inside of the walls of the world of medicine and science and really get to understand doctors and how they think, and how they function. And again, many of them, believe it or not, are people of faith, but because they're in a healthcare environment, they do not necessarily, you know, publish that or put that out there because they're still standing on their medical credentials. But within themselves, many of them are praying for their patients. Many of them are counseling their patients around the role of faith and spirituality and what does that mean to them. In many cases, they are conferring with patient's pastors and spiritual leaders to help provide additional support. So that's how they balance and manage that relationship in a very helpful manner. And there there are now research document and studies that strongly suggest that the role of spirituality and faith potentially has impact upon the mental, emotional and in some cases, physical outcomes of what happens to patients. And more and more of your younger generation of physicians are embracing that, because in many cases, they also employ that in their own personal lives.

Twanna Henderson: Yeah, I personally, I agree with that. I mean, I think that was one of the reasons why I decided on CTCA because when I realized that there was a faith component, I knew that that was something of value to me. And I wanted to be somewhere somewhere where they could appreciate my faith and my belief and my understanding. You know, we are going through difficult times right now we have we've been we've never seen anything like the pandemic that we have going on and and life is just nowhere like it was everything we are living in a new normal. And even as people of faith, our faith can still get shaky. Mm hmm. And when you layer on top of that, issues like COVID-19, or cancer and all those different things, it can be difficult to kind of navigate through some of those kind of things, how does faith potentially help persons who are traveling through the COVID-19 and even cancer patients, just in terms of understanding and then also just in terms of healing.

Rev. Percy McCray: That's a great question and as it is, it is an important question. The interesting relationship with the COVID-19 dynamic and you're right, we're in a new normal, the world that we as we know it is different and in my personal opinion We're not going back to the old normal, there's going to be many things that are going to be very different about our world and how we navigate it. Whenever we get beyond the point of where we are today, that being said, first and foremost, it's important to understand the correlation between COVID-19 and the ecology community, because of the fact that cancer patients particularly because of treatment, radiation, and chemotherapy, and etc, they are in many cases, immune deficient or compromised, so their immune systems are compromised because of treatment and care, which then obviously makes them more susceptible to the impact of the virus of COVID-19. And so there's your biological connection with the two worlds and we now know and have seen and heard of published accounts of cancer patients who have contracted COVID-19 who have died from COVID-19 because of the comorbidity of being an oncology patient, so that's the first thing to understand and it's interesting at the end of the day, I myself am a cancer patient I was diagnosed back in July of last year with early first stage colon cancer and had surgery. Yes, I had surgery had a third of my colon removed. So I often tell people just call me Reverend Semi Colon at the young man helped me have attempted to eat right, but yet, you know, I, I'm now part of that community. And so I understand this on a very personal level because again, of the possibility of your immune system being compromised. And so with that being said, How does faith come into play? And how does that potentially help people through crisis and certainly sickness and disease? Number one, as you well know, and I'm singing to the choir here and your audience, faith provides us with the ability to hope to provide us with some sort of ability to look beyond our circumstances, and to look beyond our limitations from a higher power perspective, and what that does mentally and emotionally, is that it gives us energy and it gives us a wherewithal to continue to fight against the negative effects of what we're dealing with in our physical bodies. I believe Abraham's, it says that when Abraham faced the fact that he was old, and so was Sarah, then he was able to embrace the promises of God, but he wasn't in denial over the fact that he was old, or his wife was old. He faced that fact. In other words, the point to be made here, I think, in many cases, is that believers tend to get into a place of denial, calling it being in faith. And you have now walk the path as I am now walking, that you have to face the fact that there was something going on physically with you. You didn't run from that you weren't in denial about it, you sought out good medical care, and then you incorporated your faith. So now we can get into the Word of God that says that now faith is the substance of things hoped for. Mm hmm. because it provides us with the ability to hope to see beyond the circumstances and the limitations that we may be fighting, and not allow those scenarios and situations to, to dictate our outcome, which then makes us a fighter, we fight, we push back and we continue to utilize all of the things in the natural, but we're energized by the faith of God that provides us hope to believe that tomorrow potentially can be a better day. And so that's the general impact of the role of faith in the life of an individual facing crisis and negativity. And the same is true even within the COVID-19 scenario. It is empowering us to believe that potentially tomorrow can and will be a better day.

Twanna Henderson: So let me ask you this, Reverend McCray, you know, as you said, I've walked the journey with cancer. as a as a minister of the gospel as a pastor's wife as, as someone who seeks to disciple other people, and particularly women, and yourself being a National Director of Faith Based programs, and now walking through this, and then seeing in the news, pastors and religious leaders who are contracting COVID-19 and dying from COVID-19, how do you reconcile with the fact that quote on quote, good people are getting something bad? Listen, this

Rev. Percy McCray: This is the question of the hour I and I want to, I want to articulate this and elecute it very well. I'm stimulated by this because it is forcing us to revisit our theology. It is forcing us to kind of reframe what we think we knew. I think Dr. miles late great Dr. Myles Munroe, who is now departed said it best at a conference that I attended. He said, all that, you know, is not all that there is to know and there are still things that are beyond our ability to grasp and understand. And so we have this conundrum now we have a very interesting scenario that when COVID-19 first, you know, hit the surface, there were declarations, and statements and proclamations that were made, and rightfully so from a faith based perspective of "no weapon formed against me shall prosper", that "I will live and not die", "declare the works of the Lord", all of those familiar things that you as a minister of the gospel and a person of faith that we know so well that are deep and abiding. But I think that COVID-19 is something that we had not seen before, that it's a different animal and dare I say that there are some things that I believe that God is trying to get us to see and understand and to teach us that may take us outside of the comfort zone of our theological framework and so there was a great rabbi, Jewish rabbi, Rabbi Harold Kushner wrote a book many years ago entitled, "Bad Things Happen to Good People". And of course, it helps to, it challenges us because we live in the era of a lot of faith prosperity theology, that declares that you know, if we speak it, we can have it if we declared it's ours. And I believe that in theory, in principle is true. But we do not get to dictate or mandate to God in any way, ultimately, what happens because God is sovereign first and foremost. God is not our cosmic bellhop, who turns down our covers on our bed and fluffs our pillows and puts chocolate on the bed for us at night. You got this backwards. God is sovereign and he does what he wants to do with whom he chooses to do it. So as an example, I believe the last time that I saw this report over close to 30 Bishops and senior leaders within the Church of God in Christ have died, contracted and died from the COVID-19 virus. There are pastors in Detroit, I believe, two of the Winan brothers had contracted COVID-19. They're still living, thank God. But we have seen a very mixed dynamic of what does that mean and what is God doing and how do we fit into that? Well, my position is simple. There was a man in the Bible who was born blind from birth, the Bible says and the question was asked who sinned here? Yeah, Did his mother sin, did his father sin or did he sin? And Jesus said, No one sinned here. So to answer your question, does bad things happen to good people? They absolutely do. Job was a man the Bible says he was just an upright. Yeah, and I've heard a lot of preachers preach a lot of interesting things about Job and one of them was the reason why Job suffered the things that he did it was because that he was the very thing that he was afraid of came upon him and I disagree with that theological position. So I'm going to put that out there right now. Because we start that text out by saying that he was just, and that he was upright now, anything, anything after that is conjecture upon theologically, that there was something that God allowed to happen with Job and his family, for a purpose and for a reason. And so then that takes us to Romans 8:28, that we know that all things, work together, all things, not all good things, not all bad things. All things work together for the good of them, who love God and are called according to His purpose. I think the big message here is, in some cases, have pastors and preachers and spiritual leaders tried to make a point by defying some of the social distancing, saying that we're going to have services anyway. And we're just going to allow people to migrate and integrate and not acknowledge and understand that there's something else going on here, that our spiritual faith may not be able to override, because God is not allowing that to happen under certain circumstances. Well, that blows a hole in a lot of people's theology, and they're struggling with that right now.

Twanna Henderson: Yeah, yeah, I agree. I mean, I think when you go back to Job and just recognizing that he was an upright man, the Bible says, and so, you know, one of the things I tell people all the time is I think that God trusts certain people to suffer.

Rev. Percy McCray: Well, suffering is part of the, you know, particularly the book of John. Suffering is part of the walk of a believer that's let's just start there. At the end of the day there there is no scripture that guaranteed us that we would not suffer it says that many are afflictions of the righteous but but God delivers them from the law. Well, we have to kind of take a look at what does the word deliver mean? It's the same concept of when I pray for cancer patients over 20 years now. I've seen cancer patients healed miraculously, I've seen cancer patients heal medically. I've seen cancer patients heal in a combination thereof. And I've seen cancer patients who have died. And I've learned to come to this point, that by and large, those folks did not die, because they weren't walking in faith, or that they gave up. But because again, there was something else God wanted to do and allow it to happen in their lives. And like the person who was born blind from birth, so that the works of the Lord could be displayed and glorified in the earth. And so yes, I agree that there are some people that God allows and to use your phraseology trust with suffering, because we have to continue to display who God is, even when things are not going well and that needs a spokesperson to represent that at all times, so that we can display God during the good and during the bad. We can't just serve God when everything goes our way. And I think that for a lot of believers, that that's kind of a default place that we have. And then when we get thrown a curveball, do we lose our faith? And do we default on who God is in our lives despite what is happening to us?

Twanna Henderson: Yeah. So is there a connection between COVID-19 and the cancer community at all? And if so, what is it?

Rev. Percy McCray: Yeah, it is. And again, the connection, basically, is the fact that again, as a virus that we are still you know, as I listened to all of the medical experts, even right now today, as we record this, they're still not exactly sure what this virus is and how it functions and operates on a on a molecular level. They're still trying to figure that out. But what is clear is that again, people who have number one comorbidities as we have learned, diabetes, hypertension, all of those sorts of things and along with having compromised immunity, cancer patients immune systems, in many cases are compromised because of their treatment and because of the attack upon them from an immunological perspective of fighting this disease, and so it makes them susceptible to the impact of the virus that they may not be able to ward off as well as someone whose immune system is not compromised. So that is the direct correlation and connection, and mentally and emotionally the benefit, I believe, of cancer patients who may have to deal with impact of COVID-19 is the fact that they've already been dealing with the negative challenge, if you will, of being a cancer patient. And what goes with that you've walked that walk, I've walked that walk. One of the benefits one of the gifts of being a cancer patient, is the fact that they are forced to think about dying, they think about mortality, they have to think about it. And when you think about immortality, it changes your perspective on how you live life, what you prioritize, who you hang out with, what do you do? You take life very serious Because Are you sure? Are you sure? Because tomorrow is not guaranteed and promised to you, you're forced to think about, if today was my last day, how would I live it? And what would I do? And what is my relationship with God? So that's the I think that is the psychological connection of COVID-19 and cancer and oncology because we still can't figure out why some people contract COVID-19 and die and some people don't. So that makes everyone a little nervous about contracting this. And the beauty of that if I can use that language is that it forces people to think about how am I living my life? How do I treat my wife and my husband? Am I really, do I really love and kiss my kids with some meaning. What is the purpose of my life? What am I doing with my life? If tomorrow's not promised to me, I've got to make sure that I've got to make today count. And I'm seeing a lot of people have that inspection and be circumspect with what is my life about right now because possibly tomorrow. And as we open up the states, we're going to still be confronted with this dynamic of, Okay, I'm going to work but I'm a little nervous about going to work. Again, I think that there's going to be a different emphasis and a different focus around prioritizing what's important to people and what matters to them. And I think that that starts on a spiritual level, first and foremost.

Twanna Henderson: Absolutely. I totally agree. I want to kind of go back to your role as National Director of Faith Based Programs, because I know that means kind of managing a team of people at all of the hospitals that CCTA has and all the many other roles that you have. How do you encourage those people who are encouraging?

Rev. Percy McCray: That's a great question because encouragers need to be encouraged, encouraging is tiring. I tell people all the time I'm never tired of my work, but I certainly do get tired in my work. And so I haven't gotten tired of my work. But with that being said, my one of the things that I attempt to do with the five facilities, we have five regional locations throughout the United States at Cancer Treatment Centers of America. We have a facility in Atlanta, Georgia in the greater Chicagoland area, Phoenix, Arizona, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and I'm forgetting a facility right now. So Chicago, Zion, Philip, Arizona, and Arizona, Goodyear, Arizona. So those are our five facilities. And so and I have a dotted line relationship with all of the directors and managers of the pastoral care departments and all of those five sites. And so we we have first and foremost a monthly regional meeting, where we get together and have conference calls to talk about what is working well within their facilities, their struggles things that they that they would need help and assistance with. But by and large, you know, my role is to is to be a buffer for them. Number one to let them know, I know how they feel I've been in your position, I've sat in your seat, I was a director at one of the regional sites. And so I know exactly what the day to day grind is like of seeing people dealing with potentially life threatening disease, and how to manage that and how to support people through that. The first thing that I encourage my team to do is make sure that they take quality time off out for themselves and for their families because they have to decompress they have to um, you know, they have to put the car in drive and take the key out ignition, and they've got to go get some rest at some point. Same thing is true for pastors and spiritual leaders. You can't stand before the people morning, noon and night it'll simply absorb you and exhaust you. And then the other thing is too, I encourage my team to remind themselves that they are not God that they are not the healer. See as soon as you take on the mantle of being the healer, then you got to take on the burden and the pressure that comes with that. And so we are only facilitators, and we are only traffic cops, we get to point people and direct people to the healer. And support them in that process of going to the healer, but we cannot take on the burden of trying to become the healer, and many patients will put that burden on you, because they're fighting and they're struggling and we're looking for anyone that they can connect with, that will give them a sense of hope. And so I help them to be reminded to redirect that and re channel that back to the creator because you do not have the capacity to shoulder that burden alone, or even take on that burden because it will absolutely crush you at the end of the day. So just some friendly reminders along those lines of who they are, what their limitations are and what their role actually is in that context.

Twanna Henderson: So what makes a place like CTCA different?

Rev. Percy McCray: Whoo, there are couple of things number one, and again you you've walked through the halls of the facility number one, and you've already stated it is the fact that there is a willingness from a healthcare organization, a national major healthcare organization to embrace the idea of what we call integrative medicine. Integrative Medicine has meant a lot of different things to a lot of different people. So, let me unpack what integrative medicine is, or integrative concepts are. Integrative concepts are not concepts to replace conventional clinical care, it is not a substitute or replacement for what we call, you know, conventional medicine. There are still some things that must be done and adhere to from a conventional medical perspective. And there are some people of faith who fight that and struggle that struggle with that and say that I'm just going to use my faith and then I'll just become a vegan or I'll use a plant based diet. I'll exercise more and etc. And that is not the position of Cancer Treatment Centers of America nor is that the position of this preacher or this pastor. So integrative services basically means, what are the other things that make us who we are? And how do we support that there's a mental component to us. There's an emotional component to us. And then, of course, there's a physical and then a spiritual component. How do we then tap into supporting all of those different components of an individual through a healthcare, challenge and crisis and provide the respective care and support to those areas so we have people who work at the facility who support people mentally, we call them mind body, you know, support people, to help people work through the emotional highs and lows and struggles that they're going through. We have a nutritional support component to help people work on eating better and proper dietary practices which are extremely important at the end of the day, and then we have, of course, a naturopathic support where there are some natural substances that will work well with conventional medical treatment and care, you know, that will help enhance one's immune system or support one's immune system in the process of receiving cancer treatment. And then, of course, the spiritual support, which is the area and that's my wheelhouse of helping people to tap into the idea that God is with them. God is for them. God can work through them and enable them to work through a process of sickness and disease. When you put all of those together and amalgamate that with conventional medical, medical care. You have integrative concepts and integrative support, Cancer Treatment Centers of America was the earlier individual organizations that embraced all of those moving pieces, but one of them that they really gave a great platform to was the spiritual aspect. And that's why I get to do what I do. I have a national podcast, over 300,000 subscribers that listen to our show, to talk about the role of faith and the role of medicine and science and how do they work together. It's unprecedented. I don't know of any other healthcare organization that gives that type of commitment to the integrative model, and certainly the spiritual component, internally and externally of what Cancer Treatment Centers of America does. And so that makes us very unique. And then it's all hinged upon the concept called the mother's standard of care. Our Chairman, started this organization over 30 plus years ago because of the fact that his mom died from cancer. And he vowed that he would not sit back and watch anyone else go through what his mom went through and not being responded to, as he felt correctly. And so we all understand within our organization that we're providing the mother standard of care. And that means how would you treat your mom? If she was your one and only patient? Well, I think we all know the answer to that at the end of the day. And absolutely. And that's the unique some of the unique aspects of who we are as an organization. And I'm so proud to be there for the time that I have to continue to serve this community with that robust focus and interaction.

Twanna Henderson: And it is really amazing and I'm not trying to do a PR commercial for CTCA, but it is what it is. And as we said, you know, we are we're navigating through a new normal things will never be the same. And there are a lot of people who are, as we said, who are navigating through COVID-19 who are navigating through cancer, and just really a whole host of other health related challenges. As we prepare to close can you pray for people who are just struggling with their faith, particularly as it relates to their health, health with their families, and just storms that they're going through at this time.

Rev. Percy McCray: Absolutely. I think that would be appropriate to do so. Pray with me if you will. Father God, we thank You, Lord, as always for the privilege and the opportunity to pray. And we ask now that the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart will be acceptable in thy sight, oh Lord, our strength and our redeemer. Lord, as we turn to you once again, as we should, we've been encouraged through your Word that we should pray without ceasing, that that men and women should always pray. We certainly now find ourselves in the midst of this day in this hour that the world has never seen before. And there is confusion, there is chaos. Fear is running rampant and just uncertainty in general. And so we call upon the one true living God that we know who sits high and looks low, that Father that you will incline your ear on to our prayer, that and go forward as a people, nationally and internationally, globally, that we pray first and foremost for a renewed sense of, of spiritual focus that as we've had many things taken away from us sports, shopping, the ability to do certain things that we've entertained ourselves by, we have found ourselves basically left with just you having to spend quality time with you. I believe in many ways, Lord, that that is your desire that you miss your time with us you miss spending quality time with your creation. And so we thank you that we have opportunity and access to the throne room of heaven. And so we boldly come before you now we pray for the mental and the emotional and physical challenges that individuals are working through right now and they are many that people are struggling with people are working through depression. People are working through a lack of focus, attention deficit disorders, we pray for stabilization of people's mental faculties and well being of God that you will stabilize them that you will calm their fears, and that you bring them into a place of relaxation. And you said that we should rest in you Oh god. As we do that, that you said that we would mount up on the wings of an eagle and so that we will not be weary and that we will continue to walk and run and not walk and not faint and so we pray for that strength today. We pray Lord that uh, that physically for individuals who are going through many physical challenges, that we pray for your healing virtue to be released upon those individuals that the balm of Gilead that will be applied to them accordingly, oh God, minister life unto that which appears to be dead matters to strength to that, that appears to be weak and minister oh god endurance to that that appears to be tired. We call upon you on this day that you are Jehovah Jirah. And you are a provider that are more than enough. And so May those that hear these words they be encouraged, strengthened and motivated to continue to push forward to the next level. Because we do believe and we're expecting that the best is still yet to come. So we thank you in advance for this and all thy blessings and your mercy will prevail and that it will endure forever. This today is cry and our prayer in the name of Jesus Christ. We do say amen.

Twanna Henderson: Amen. Reverend McCray, thank you for joining us on T Time today. It was my pleasure.

Rev. Percy McCray: Thank you for having me. Please continue to enjoy yourself. Be safe, wash your hands and we'll be praying for you to all of our listeners.

Twanna Henderson: I look forward to connecting with you the next time be blessed of the Lord.