Friday, September 21, 2012

Isabella Marie


Meet Bella. My precious, energetic, beautiful niece. Bella was born on Oct. 2, 2009. Our whole family had one heck of a year that year. My sister found out she was expecting. I got married. My dad had open heart surgery. Bella was born 2 days after my dad had come out of surgery and into the ICU to recover. Only 4 days after my Birthday. In the midst of fear and uncertainty with what was happening with my dad, this awesome little girl came into the world. She was a first for a lot of us. My sister's first child. My mom's first grandchild. My first niece. We loved her so much.
I remember asking dragging my husband to go see her every chance we got. For a while, things were good, no things were great. My sister welcomed her second little one into the world Aug 29, 2011. My husband became the youth pastor at a church is AZ and we started a dream of ours doing youth ministry together. In 2012, I got a new job working from home with my husband, we moved to be close to our church family  and all our family was healthy and happy. I remember when 2012 started becoming, well, not so great.We had a conference planned for our church. We were all really excited. We had plans to stay in a hotel and go to a 2 day church plant seminar called Ignite. Just a couple days before, our pastors 4-year old daughter had started to get really sick. She had an extremely rare immune deficiency disease called Castlemans since she was 2 years old. We went to the conference, praying the whole time, our hearts sad, wanting to be with our pastor and his family. I remember the worship that night. Singing Healer. Trusting God like never before, to heal that baby girl. We knew He would and He did. Skylar went to be with Jesus the next day. Happy, healed, full of peace and being cuddled by Jesus. We jumped in our cars and raced to the hospital. I remember seeing Brooke, Skylar's older sister, crying and she just ran to me, and I hugged her. I remember Kecia, Skylar's mom being strong and beautiful and full of love like she always is. I'll never forget that day. I'll never forget their response to this. Pastor Rance saying how they didn't understand the why but they knew the WHO. How because of one child's beautiful life, my life was forever changed. By the smiles, hugs, and prayers she so freely gave. By her family allowing God to completely comfort them and choosing to trust Him no matter what. I am telling that story because I feel as though the Lord was preparing me for what was to come. He was working in me to change my heart so that I could see He was in control and to just trust Him. Cling to him in every circumstance and experience His peace just as I had seen the Meyer's experience it. It had been only 3 months since this. It was 3 in the morning and my phone was ringing. It was my sister. I answered. This is what I heard her say; "Bella's Dr thinks Bella has Leukemia. Will you meet me at the hospital?"  Of course I am already on my way out of bed and grabbing some stuff. We are both up now, ready to go. The drive was completely silent. We both just sat there praying, praying, praying. Please God, Please don't let her have...cancer. Just thinking the word, brought pain. Bella does have Leukemia. She was diagnosed June 26, 2012 with Acute lymphoblastic leukemia. Here's the crazy thing, The reason we found out is because Bella's leg was hurting. Her leg hurt and now she has cancer. It's still hard to think about it. Not a lot happened after hearing the news. It confirmed our worst fears. But you want to know what happened to me? I have heard so many times about the peace of God. I love Jesus, my life is His. I will choose every day to be His. But this peace, I had rarely experienced. The only other time that I had was on my wedding day. I deal with anxiety. Peace is hard for me. But in this moment, it wasn't hard for God to give it to me, it never was. Of course He has this all figured out, He is my God. He LOVED Bella before we ever knew her. She belongs to Him. Of course He has every.single.moment. of her life planned out. There are days when I start to think about it. Think about Bella, about cancer. What ifs and what now. I get so scared. And then I start to think about my sister. How can she do this. Sometimes it's really hard. I don't understand any of this and I wont pretend to. I question why. I get scared. But I do know God is still God. He is good. He knows and loves all of us. He knows the end. "And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose...Romans 8:28. So right now, I am going to keep trusting. Keep praying. Keep calling on God for a miracle. If you want to know more about my niece and her journey, you can go to her blog here or her facebook page here. And if you do read this, please keep her in your prayers. I know we serve a God who loves us so much, who cares so deeply about us all and I know He hears us, so please, take some time to pray for beautiful niece and our family.





 With love,
Jess



1 comment:

Thank you so much for visiting my blog! I LOVE hearing from my readers and so appreciate you being here :)

Pin It button on image hover