I came across the "letter" below as I was rearranging my files today. It was read by Pastor Dave back in 1990 after Susan's first bout with cancer.
Letter to Town North Presbyterian Church, Richardson, TX.
Read as part of the morning sermon on 9/30/90.
Sermon topic: Intercessory Prayer
By Susan Dishman
Hi, I'm Susan Dishman and I don't like to talk in public.
For some time now, I've been a prayer request on your prayer list that gets handed out every week. First, you prayed for me during my surgery, after I found out that I had cancer. Then, you prayed for me during the last 18 weeks as I went through chemo-therapy.
When Pastor Dave asked me to tell you--in public--what intercessory prayer meant to me, I asked him if he had ever heard about stress management in cancer patients. I told him that getting up in front of you would not help me manage my stress! So he agreed to let me write this out so that he could read it, and so he could manage the stress instead of me.
Intercessory prayer has meant a great deal to me over the last several months. The diagnosis of my cancer came as shock to me and my family last April. We had just learned that my mother had breast cancer in February, almost exactly a year after my father had died of cancer. And all of this came in a year when we had moved to Texas from New Jersey, our oldest son had started to college in Georgia, and our younger sons had to start all over at high schools in Texas.
Back in New Jersey we had depended a great deal on our Christian friends in the church we had attended for 22 years to support us in times like this. Here, we were newcomers to the Town North congregation. Could we really expect people we were just getting to know, and who were just getting to know us, to support us in the same way through prayer and caring?
What we actually found was that the Lord knew that I would be going through this trial at this time, and He had prepared this congregation to be just the right support we needed through your prayers and your acts of love to us.
There has been such a bonding between you and us as you've prayed for us, and we prayed for you. The first people we told after the diagnosis were our friends from our small group fellowship as we sat around a table in Braum's Ice Cream shop in Plano. I'll never forget our standing outside the door of Braum's while Don Campbell led us in prayer for wisdom about the surgery and the chemotherapy and how much peace that gave us.
And then the Sunday before my surgery was the same Sunday that George Caruth lost his father. As it turned out, I sat right in front of George that day, and during the time of prayer he placed his hand on my shoulder as he reached out to comfort me. I think that symbolizes what intercessory prayer is all about. Needy people, bonded together by their need, and being cared for and comforted by God's people who submit them to the Lord's will and His mercy.
Have your prayers for me and my family been answered? Does praying for others do any good?
In some sense, I don't know what the final answer to your prayers and my prayers will be. But here's what I do know. First, the knowledge that you were praying for me gave me strength to carry on. There have been many days when I was just too sick to pray, even for myself. But I knew you were praying for me. You told me you were, and you sent me cards, and called me on the phone to encourage me. That made a big difference in my own attitude. At first, I dreaded those chemo treatments. I thought they were doing something TO me. But as the accumulated weight of your prayers took hold in my mind, I began to see that those treatments were doing something FOR me. I actually began to get stronger during the final two months, and the side effects were greatly reduced. I even managed to keep most of my hair, even though the particular chemo I received almost always causes complete hair loss.
Something else I know is that I have changed as a person through your prayers, and through the Lord's use of this experience in my life. In the story of Mary and Martha, I very much identify with Martha. I like to have the dishes done, the floor swept, and the beds made.
Barb Cole once told me that even though you expect everything to return to normal after your illness is "over," it really never does. You look at life much differently than before. And so I'm starting to appreciate Mary almost as much as Martha now. I appreciate each day for what it is. I'm seeing how precious each day is in God's sight and in the fellowship we have with Him.
Now that my chemotherapy is over, I expect to fade out from the weekly prayer list. Others will need to be placed there more than me. But please don't stop praying! I know that there are many others in this congregation that have struggled, and are struggling, through trials far worse than mine, and through your prayers have succeeded in overcoming their fears, and the temptation to doubt God's love and mercy. We need to keep praying for one another!
I never would have asked to get a serious disease like cancer, but now I understand how the Lord can bring what seem like terrible trials into our lives to accomplish a far greater good, just like the Lord's death made possible our salvation. For me that greater good is to draw closer to Him, to draw closer to my family, and to draw closer in love to all of you. Thanks for praying!