There is something we sometimes forget when listening to another person’s testimony: the person telling the story had to live through every painful part of it. We hear the ending. We see the family photograph. We celebrate the degree, the career, the children, the restored life. But the person sharing the testimony once stood in a place where none of those outcomes were guaranteed. There was no tidy conclusion yet. No beautiful bow. No certainty that the story would turn out the way she hoped. That is what stayed with me after my conversation with Dr. Victoria Ehima. Victoria describes herself as “that woman the Lord has shown mercy.” After hearing even a portion of her story, I understand why those words carry so much weight for her. She has known joy, but she has also walked through incredibly deep waters. She lost her first son after an emergency delivery at only 24 weeks. She later suffered a life-threatening stroke caused by a blood clot that traveled to her brain. The stroke left the left side of her body paralyzed. She went from using a wheelchair to a walker and then a cane as she slowly learned how to navigate life again. And still, her story continued. Faith formed long before the crisis Victoria was born and raised in Nigeria. As she described her childhood, she talked about prayer as something woven into the atmosphere around her. Churches prayed early in the morning. The sounds of people calling on God could be heard throughout the community. Her parents—especially her mother—made sure she was surrounded by faith and the things of God from an early age. Listening to her reminded me that we often do not realize how the faith being formed in us today will sustain us tomorrow. The Scriptures we are learning now matter. The prayers we are praying now matter. The habit of going into God’s presence matters. We do not always know when we will need to reach for what has already been planted deeply within us. For Victoria, one of those moments came while she was holding her first son. Psalm 23 in the valley After Victoria’s baby was delivered prematurely, he was placed on life support in the NICU. Doctors later discovered bleeding in his brain and spoke with Victoria and her husband about the devastating decisions before them. They were allowed time to hold their son. As Victoria held him, she began reciting Psalm 23. “The Lord is my shepherd…” But when she reached the words, “Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,” she broke down. She was not merely reading about a valley. She was standing in one. She was holding her child while confronting the reality of death. Psalm 23 was no longer simply a familiar passage. It became the language of her grief. That part of our conversation deeply moved me because grief has a way of changing how we hear Scripture. Verses we have read many times suddenly meet us differently when we are hurting. The words do not remove the pain. They do not rush us through the valley. But they remind us that we are not walking through it alone. “For You are with me.” Sometimes that is the promise we have to hold when we cannot hold anything else. Before her son died, Victoria spoke to him. She told him to return peacefully to the God who gave him. Then she said something remarkable: “When you come back, please bring your sister.” She believed that one day she would have a boy and a girl. At the time, there was no evidence that this would happen. There was only grief, faith, and a prayer she placed before God. When another crisis came After returning home, Victoria experienced a stroke. She woke one morning unable to understand what was happening to her body. The left side of her body had become paralyzed. When she attempted to stand, she fell and hit her head. Confusion set in, and she could not even think clearly enough to use her phone to call for help. Eventually, she received medical treatment and entered rehabilitation. Doctors told her that the blood clot in her brain was large enough that it should have killed her. But it did not. That is why she says she is a woman shown mercy. Not because nothing painful ever happened to her. Not because she avoided every valley. But because she can look back over a life that should have ended and see that God preserved her. Mercy does not always mean we are spared from the battle. Sometimes mercy is the reason we are still here to tell the story. From rehabilitation to returning to school One part of Victoria’s testimony that I especially loved was what happened while she was recovering at home. She went back to school. She began her bachelor’s degree online while still recovering from the stroke. She later completed her master’s degree and earned her doctorate. At the time of our conversation, she had also recently passed her certification examination in Nursing Informatics. Think about that. The woman who once had to progress from a wheelchair to a walker and then a cane continued moving forward academically and professionally. She did not look like what she had been through. In fact, during our Rapid Fire segment, when I asked what people might be surprised to know about her, she answered by pointing to her faith and then said: “I don’t look like what I’ve been through.” That sentence deserves a pause. Some people are carrying testimonies we would never recognize simply by looking at them. Their lives may appear polished now, but we do not know the cost of the oil they carry. We do not know the nights they cried, the diagnoses they received, the things they lost, or the strength it took to keep moving. Be careful about assuming that someone’s current chapter tells you the whole story. The boy and the girl Despite the risks and the fear surrounding another pregnancy, Victoria continued to believe God for children. When she discovered she was pregnant again, she told her husband she believed she was carrying twins. Later, during the ultrasound, she saw the first gestational sac. Then she saw the second. She immediately knew: twins. But she continued believing for the rest of the prayer—a boy and a girl. And that is what she and her husband received. Their twins are now preparing to enter their senior year of high school. I want to be careful here because the birth of the twins did not erase the life or loss of their first son. New joy does not cancel old grief. A new child does not replace the child who died. But God gave Victoria and her husband beauty alongside the sorrow they carried. He allowed grief and fulfillment to exist within the same story. And, as Victoria shared, even the birth of the twins was not the end of her medical journey. There is still more of her testimony to tell—so much more, in fact, that I have already told her she must return for another conversation. What waiting can produce During our SALT segment—Sweet Affirming Ladies Talk—I asked Victoria what she would say to the woman who feels forgotten by God. Her answer was simple, but it was not shallow: “Your waiting is not in vain.” She explained that waiting can become a place where our faith and intimacy with God deepen. She described delay as a season of divine preparation. I know that we often say, “Delay is not denial.” It is a powerful encouragement, but I also believe we must hold that statement tenderly. We cannot promise one another that every prayer will be answered exactly as we envision it. Faith is not a formula through which we control the outcome. Trust is deeper than that. Trust says, “God, I believe You are good even when I do not yet know what You will do.” Trust says, “I will remain near You while I wait.” Trust says, “My life is in Your hands, not because I understand everything, but because You do.” That brought our conversation directly back to Proverbs 3:5–6: “Trust in the Lord with all your heart,and lean not on your own understanding;in all your ways acknowledge Him,and He shall direct your paths.” We want understanding because understanding can make us feel safe. We want the plan, the timeline, the reason, and the guarantee. But sometimes God does not give us all the information. Sometimes He asks us to lean on His wisdom rather than our own. Abiding at His feet When I asked Victoria about her favorite woman in Scripture, her answer was Mary of Bethany. That was fitting. Mary understood the value of sitting at Jesus’ feet. She knew how to worship. She knew that His presence was not a distraction from what mattered; His presence was what mattered most. Victoria described her own time with Jesus in much the same way: worship music, the Bible, prayer, meditation, and simply resting in His presence. That is what we have been talking about throughout this summer’s ABIDE series: Learning to be with Jesus before doing for Jesus. Abiding does not mean we will never experience grief. It does not mean we will always understand God’s timing. It does not mean the medical report will always say what we hoped it would say. Abiding means we remain connected to Jesus in all of it. In the hospital. In the waiting. In the rehabilitation center. In the classroom. In the fulfillment. In the questions that still have no answers. We stay near. Her final encouragement At the end of our conversation, I asked Victoria what one truth she wanted every woman listening to remember. Her answer was direct: Have faith in God. Not faith in a specific outcome. Not faith in our ability to make everything turn out well. Faith in God. The God who knows all. The God who sees what we cannot see. The God who remains present in the valley. The God whose mercy is new every morning. Dr. Victoria Ehima’s story is not merely a story about surviving a stroke or eventually giving birth to twins. It is a story about what it means to keep turning toward God when life moves beyond our control. And perhaps that is the invitation for each of us today: Do not wait until you understand e
