Worship pastor writes a song of victory after wife battles cancer during pregnancy

While facing their hardest battles, a couple says God gave them surreal peace, which birthed their song 'The Victory'. 

Jed and Emily Bayes are from Sanford, North Carolina where Jed is the Worship Pastor at Grace Chapel Church and Emily works as a Physician's Assistant.

Jed has been song-writing and touring over the past five years as the right-hand man and keyboardist to renowned Worship Leader Charles Billingsley. In that position, Jed has played opening worship for well-known Christian speakers such as Lysa Terkeurst and even the late Ravi Zacharias. 

Now, he's putting out his own music, this first song co-written by him and his wife, Emily. This first single will be available on October 16.

"This is the very first song we've written together," says Jed. "I've been writing songs since I was nine years old and I've written hundreds of songs. As much of a creative as I am, Emily is the exact opposite."

As Jed was writing and creating the song in 2018, Emily offered her opinion on a direction for the song, something she had never done. 

"As we were going through the song, there was a lot of discussion too on how it mirrored how we felt about what God had done in our lives, and in our story," says Emily. 

While the couple had initially created a 'five-year plan' after they got married, God prompted them to start having kids sooner than they had anticipated. 

Within a few months, the couple was excitedly expecting their first child. However, shortly after Emily became pregnant, she faced some intense health complications.

"At seven weeks, I was having a lot of pain. I started getting nervous so I went over to the ultrasound tech and had her do a quick ultrasound to check for the heartbeat and whatnot."

As Emily worked in the ER at their local hospital at the time, having this procedure wasn't an issue. The tech found a large cyst and told Emily it looked complex.   

Initially, when the OB/GYN saw the scan, he reassured her that it was probably just endometriosis and that her baby would be fine. 

"At 11 weeks and 5 days, I was in a patient's room [working] when I started to have severe pain and started to bleed."

After a couple of days and further testing, the doctor suggested she have surgery right away to remove the mass. 

"My OB/GYN comes in and he says, 'I've been praying about this and I really feel like this is the right decision and I feel a peace about it from God.' I remember going onto the table and I was so scared. This woman came over and told me she had prayed over me, the baby, and the surgeon. Then she told me to let it go. Talk about angels unaware, it was exactly what I needed," says Emily.

The surgery ended up revealing more information. There was cancer in Emily's ovaries, tubes, in the cyst, and her appendix. The doctors had removed everything that had cancer in it while leaving their baby intact in the womb. 

Hearing all this news after a much longer surgery than planned, Jed remembers crying out to God.

"I had this underlying peace through it all even though it was a huge shock. The only way I knew how to process it and not go crazy was to put my trust in God. Trusting that He was going to work it out for the greater good, no matter what that meant," says Jed.

The couple was presented with an option to abort which would allow Emily to start chemotherapy or radiation right away. 

"We prayed about it and said we'd move forward with the pregnancy and the doctors would just watch me closely," she says.

During the pregnancy, Emily experienced depression and anxiety. 

"We would be at places where Jed was leading worship and both of us would just cry because worship was different. When you go through something of that sort, it really teaches you who you're worshipping and why you're worshipping."

The Bayes welcomed a healthy baby boy at full term.

"We had a c-section and Lincoln was perfect. At that time, they couldn't find any signs of cancer," says Emily.

Typically, ovarian cancer is called the silent killer as it's hard to initially diagnose. By the time the doctors do, it's spread so far there's not much else they can do, according to Emily. 

"The doctors told me that had I not gotten pregnant when I did, they would have never found the ovarian cancer that was building," says Emily. "God used Lincoln to save my life. First of all, I wasn't ever even supposed to get pregnant. Then to get pregnant and find the ovarian cancer, it was the picture of Christ."

The couple enjoyed their baby boy for a full year before Emily's cancer returned. In that time they also wrote their song of victory, which ended up being a sign of future hope as they faced another battle of cancer.

The doctors performed a total hysterectomy on Emily, which meant she couldn't have any more children naturally. The great news for the couple was that the doctors couldn't find any more cancer cells.

"I've been in remission now for a year without having to do radiation or chemo. My one prayer was that if it was God's will for me to have only one child, I wanted to be presented. God answered that prayer."

This song, 'The Victory', remains and anthem for the couple, and they hope it will be a beacon of hope for others facing a hard battle.

"Resting and knowing that God is in control, that is the peace that gave me the strength to endure all of this," says Jed. 

Lincoln Bayes recently celebrated his third birthday.