Bethel Music has released a video sharing the story behind Raise a Hallelujah, the miraculous healing of Jaxon, the son of Bethel’s CEO, Joel Taylor. Jaxon’s illness was the inspiration for “Raise a Hallelujah,” the first song on Bethel’s album, Victory. The beginning lyrics are:
I raise a hallelujah, in the presence of my enemies
I raise a hallelujah, louder than the unbelief
I raise a hallelujah, my weapon is a melody
I raise a hallelujah, heaven comes to fight for me
The Miraculous Story Behind Raise a Hallelujah
A few days before Christmas in 2017, Joel and Janie Taylor’s two-year-old son became suddenly ill and had to go to the ER. Even though Jaxon initially came home from that visit, his health quickly declined instead of improving, and he ended up being taken via helicopter to an intensive care unit. It turned out that he had hemolytic-uremic syndrome (HUS) due to an E. coli infection and was in a battle for his life. Jaxon’s mom, Janie, says, “I was just flooded with this sense that I might never know my boy growing up to be a man. It might be this week that I lose my son.”
The next few weeks were emotional ones. While the family thought Jaxon had turned a corner toward recovery shortly after Christmas, the battle for his life continued, with the two-year-old vomiting blood and experiencing kidney failure, seizures, and trouble with his respiratory system.
Then, in the middle of Jaxon’s struggle, the Taylors found out that their four-year-old daughter, Addie, had the same strand of E. coli as Jaxon and therefore the potential of also developing HUS.
In the video, Joel says,
There’s a time when you’ve said every prayer you can say and you don’t have the strength to praise and worship any more. And you haven’t slept for weeks. And you’re just kind of undone…The flip side of that is I feel like that was the moment that I really began to feel the prayers around the world.
At one point during the ordeal, the Taylors’ friends, Jonathan David and Melissa Helser, got word that it was unlikely Jaxon would make it through the night. Devastated by the news, Jonathan David Helser says he felt like a “giant of unbelief” stood before him. But he also felt resilience in the face of that unbelief and a “melody just erupted” out of his heart. This is the story behind Raise a Hallelujah.
He sent the song to Joel, who listened to it repeatedly and played it to his son.
Soon after the New Year, Jaxon finally started to improve without relapsing, and Addie began to recover as well. On January 16th, 2018, the Taylor family went home from the hospital. It had been one month since Jaxon had been outside. Says Janie, “This is part of our story now, and it’s part of Jaxon’s testimony of his life, that the world will know that miracles happen.”
In an Instagram post on December 30, 2017, Joel wrote, “Thank you Global church for your prayers and support. You’ve been our lifeline more than you can imagine. You’ve held our arms up when we have no more strength.”
