A Reason for my Hope!

I'm finishing off another rough week. Different, but still rough. The new meds helped with some of the symptoms, but not all. I want to cry myself to sleep every night, but I can't let myself because it makes the head aching worse. Without the HOPE that the doctors got all the cancer and this treatment is mostly prevention, without the HOPE that till May I am going to be sick for 1 week, but feel well for 2, without the HOPE that I can do or face ALL things through Christ who gives me strength (Philippians 4:13), I would feel very HOPELESS right about now. I cannot imagine an inkling of the hopelessness those without a personal relationship with Christ must feel when something in their life goes wrong.

That being said, Jesus told His followers to, "be ready always to give an answer to every man that asks you, a reason for the hope that is in you..." (I Peter 3:15). So this morning, I was thinking of a couple of reasons that give me HOPE...

1. Psalms 139 says it all. God knew me and loved me even before He formed me in the womb and He knew the number of days that I would live. Nothing can separate me from His love! "How precious are Your thoughts to me, O God! How vast is the sum of them! If I should count them, they would outnumber the sand!"
2. Jeremiah 29:11-13 encompasses so much! I know that God has a plan for my life, that He hears my prayers and that He is a God who is personal and can be known! His death on the cross gave me the hope of a future without calamity in Heaven someday and I love His promise..."call upon Me, and come and pray to Me, and I will listen to you. And you will seek Me and find Me, when you search for Me with all your heart!"

As I go through this cancer experience, I am encouraged by and in awe of those fellow believers in Christ who have not gotten the positive news that I have and yet are singing the praises of their Saviour with gusto. I am overwhelmed by their courage and faith and challenged by the strength of their personal relationship with Jesus Christ through their own cancer stories. My children's pediatrician and his wife, Pastor Matt Chandler, and Zac, the son of some missionary friends. Please click on their stories and read their hearts. I thank them so much for their faithful testimonies!