08/19/2026
On December 5, St. John member, Nancy, headed to the grocery store, never imagining that a trip she's made thousands of times would nearly cost her her life.
As she turned into a shopping center, another vehicle struck her at a high rate of speed. The impact sent Nancy’s vehicle rolling. She had to be cut from the car, and when first responders arrived, she was not breathing. They revived her at the scene. Nancy suffered multiple fractures and spent months in hospitals and rehabilitation. But over and over again, her family saw God’s hand in the middle of circumstances that could have ended very differently.
The accident happened directly in front of a fire station, putting paramedics on the scene almost immediately. Once Nancy was already in the ER, her daughter was volunteering when she felt an unusual prompting: Check your mom’s location. When she did, saw that Nancy’s phone was at the hospital. At the same time, a police officer was trying to reach her. She never would have answered a number she didn't know.
“It was a God wink,” Nancy's daughter said.
Nancy nearly died again in the hospital when she began bleeding internally. Her daughter kept telling the medical staff, “Something is wrong.” Eventually, the trauma team intervened and discovered that Nancy’s hemoglobin had fallen to 5.4. They were able to stop the bleeding and save her life. Then came another terrifying night. While Nancy was in rehabilitation, she suddenly couldn’t breathe. She was rushed back to the hospital, where doctors discovered fluid filling her chest. Emergency surgery and chest tubes followed.
Eventually, the doctors gathered Nancy’s family for a sobering conversation: if the treatment didn’t work, they would need to consider palliative care. Nancy was within an hour of dying.
Her family called out to the Lord in prayer and Nancy turned the corner. After months of setbacks, therapy and hard work, Nancy was eventually able to go home. Later, when her doctor told her that one of her fractured vertebrae had finally healed considerably and she could stop using her bone-growth stimulator, Nancy remembers thinking, “Praise the Lord!”
Looking back, Nancy is overwhelmed with gratitude for the doctors and therapists, her family and friends, and especially for the countless people who prayed (including the body of believers at St. John). “I just feel so grateful for every person,” she said. “I just feel like the Lord listened to everybody.” For her daughter, the greatest lesson was perseverance and learning to trust God even when the outcome is uncertain. “He’s got this,” she said. “Even if He had a different outcome in mind, I knew Mom was going to be okay either way.”
Nancy’s story included fear, anger, grief and lament. And there was also prayer, community and a God who was present in all of those moments. “We really did praise Him through that storm,” Nancy said. God’s work is evident when we get the miracle for which we've desperately prayed. Sometimes it doesn't work out that way. There are times when His work is seen in the strength to endure or even in the person who shows up at exactly the right moment, even if the end result is harder than we imagined.
Nancy came through a season in which her family nearly lost her multiple times. Today, she is home, grateful for our powerful God who was at work through it all.
