“Savior, He can move the mountains, My God is Mighty to save”
May Chappell – Daddy, Bella and Gabbi singing
We went to the emergency room close to midnight. Bella was so sick that she had to go through all these tests where they poked and prodded her everywhere. We were just being entertained by so many doctors and nurses who simply had no answers for us.
Chris and I couldn’t let ourselves be too worried because we knew that if we showed any kind of panic or worry around Bella, it wouldn’t be good. Besides, she was singing at the top of her lungs at this point.
My heart and my mind was out of control, though.
For almost 5 years we prayed to have this little one. Now, she is lying on a hospital bed. We didn’t know if she was in any kind of pain either, because if you know Bella, she is just like that. She doesn’t let on how bad she hurts any where. Before the age of 2, she had 4 major surgeries on her clubfoot. When I say major, I am talking about 4.5 hours in the OR. She came out of each of those surgeries fine, smiling and sometimes laughing.
Our couple of hours turned into almost 6 hours in the emergency room and none of those hours were we left just hanging out in the room by ourselves…I mean, the doctors and nurses were constantly drawing blood, checking her for any kind of infection, getting x-rays, etc. She just hung in there like a champ and still singing Mighty to Save.
Finally, around 5:30am or so, we were all sent home to get some rest. We would wait to hear back about the results of some of the other tests. We saw our first sunrise in Maine that day!
Late into the afternoon, we were all at the church cleaning and practicing for praise and worship. Clearly, Bella was not herself. She was very weak so our practice was not as productive. Gabbi was crawling everywhere with no care in the world and we were so tired from all that happened the night before.
The phone suddenly rings with the ER doctor on the other line:
“Are you Isabella’s Mom?”
“Yes”
“Please come back to the ER right now, Isabella has bacteria in her blood and we need to start treating her right now. All her results just came back.”
Chris and I didn’t ask questions. We just packed the girls up in the car and made our way back to the hospital.
We got to the hospital and Bella was just as lethargic as she was when we first brought her in.
Everything became a blur but her singing…her voice, a little weaker this time:
“Savior, He can move the mountains, my God is Mighty to Save
Forever Author of Salvation
He rose and conquered the grave”
Over and over she kept singing this…Chris and I held the miracle baby beside us and Gabbi, who was 8 months old, hung onto her sister tightly. We prayed for God to heal our little girl as the nurses started her IV line. I didn’t know at the time how to really react to what was going on…I was in pain inside.
I had a long talk with God.
It took ALL I could to pray this way:
“Ok, God, I know You can heal Bella
I know You can make her better
But if Your healing isn’t exactly the way I think it is and Your plan is different from ours
Then, I am OK with that
I thank You, for gifting us a wonderful 2 years with this little determined little girl
Do what You have to do to make her better,
Amen”
We called our church prayer line and in NC to help pray for Bella. A friend from NC said that he was asleep and had a dream about Bella that day. He didn’t even know she was sick but knew when the phone rang Bella was not well before answering. In his dream, Bella was taken away by a big dark shadow but then a white and bigger shadow came for her and the dark shadow dropped Bella and told the white and bigger shadow, “Fine, you can have her back…” and went running away from Bella and the white bigger something held Bella tightly and close. Bella was safe and sound.
God did something that night.
He taught us how to completely surrender again.
First, He taught us how to surrender almost 5 years before the desire to have children. Then, He taught us how to surrender the gifts He has blessed us with, no matter what and how that would look like.
Bella responded quickly to the IV’s given to her but we were instructed to go to ER for the next 10 days to have her injected with high doses of antibiotics.
Many prayed for her and the sweet little girl recovered quickly from the bacteria in her blood and after 3 days, she was able to be on oral antibiotics. God healed her, God answered the way I prayed and begged that He would.
Knowing that Bella may not have survived that event, we are truly grateful for God’s hand on her life. We know that from the very beginning, God truly made her special. She is so determined to do a lot of things and nothing stops her. She inspires me everyday to keep going and not to let things stop me from chasing a dream or a goal! Our mountains may be high and hard to climb but with our Savior, He can move those mountains. He always saves us because He is always with us. He is the author and finisher of our faith. Keep trusting Him! Don’t give up!
