I Know the Plans I Have for You

A new year usually brings with it a renewed perspective and much excitement.

This year, the new year seemed to bring with it just more of the same - stress and frustration.

While our Christmas holidays were filled with several wonderful visits with our families, lots of time in the car (we traveled a total of 1600 miles!) and great thankfulness of Christ's birth, it still carried with it the heavy burden that comes from battling cancer and all of its side effects. The bottom line, the past 21 months have completely worn our family out.

However, over the past several days, the following verse keeps coming to mind ...

Jeremiah 29:11 "I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future."
This verse has changed my outlook of this new year. We have to claim this verse and the promises it carries. Also, in Joshua 1:9 it says, "Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be terrified; do not be discouraged, for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go."

Elena still has eight more months to go. Eight more clinic visits, eight more rounds of steroids, eight more months of daily chemo pills at home, and three more times to be sedated for chemo treatments to her brain and spine.

We need to be strong, not discouraged.
We need to be courageous, not disheartened.
We need to rely on God, not ourselves or others.
We need to trust in His promises, not our own.

We will make it to the end. We will grow stronger as a family. God will lead the way.

In Him,
The Tates