By Victoria Murphy
There was a time when our life felt predictable – even though it was anything but.
In 2020, Landon Murphy was diagnosed with a Stage 2 Astrocytoma. Not long after his diagnosis, we met. From the beginning, our relationship was built not just on love, but on faith, resilience, and walking through the unknown together.
Landon answered his calling to serve as a State Trooper in 2023, while I became a Pediatric ER nurse, driven by the desire to care for others in their most critical moments.
A couple of months later, on October 13, Landon asked me to be his wife. On August 31, 2024, we got married, full of hope and excited for the future.
On February 2, 2025, Landon was baptized. Around this time, he was pursuing the path to becoming a Chaplain for the Mississippi Highway Patrol. His baptism was a declaration of that calling – a step of obedience, surrender, and faith in whatever God had ahead. Looking back now, it means even more.
In April of 2025, Landon was involved in a car accident while on duty. What followed felt like a whirlwind we could not slow down. On Easter Day, he underwent arm surgery, followed by a couple of nights in the hospital.
Months later, in August, Landon experienced a grand-mal seizure lasting over five minutes at our home. I will never forget the community of paramedics and firefighters surrounding us. Every hat and helmet was off, every head bowed, as they lifted us in prayer.
Everything about that day was terrifying – our lives started to move at a pace that felt impossible. We went from many nights in the hospital, straight to the airport, to the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, where we learned that Landon’s diagnosis had progressed to stage 4.
Four days later, Landon underwent an 11-hour brain surgery and was awake for most of it. Watching someone you love walk through something so intense, so unimaginable, strips away everything that once felt important and leaves you clinging only to what matters.
From September 10 to October 21, 2025, we made three trips to Cancun, Mexico, for additional treatment. In January 2026, we found ourselves in the ICU again. A severe headache led to five days of IV steroids.
Now, Landon continues to do immunotherapy infusions every two weeks. We just recently made a trip to Indianapolis, IN, to seek another opinion.
In the midst of all this, I have come face-to-face with what faith really means. Because if I’m honest, I’ve had many moments of fear, exhaustion, and questions I didn’t even know how to pray, when my faith didn’t feel strong. Nights when I cried out to God and felt nothing but silence.
We are still praying for healing. Still trusting that God is writing something far greater than we can see. While I don’t have all the answers, I do have this certainty:
He is in the hospital rooms.
He is in the long nights.
He is in the waiting, the fear, and the unknown.
He is here.
A relationship with Christ is not about living a life free of pain. It’s about trusting Him in the middle of it. Landon has always had a heart to show Christ to everyone – and now our prayer is that others would experience that love after seeing His goodness through our story.
Even in life’s hardest moments, He is faithful, and He is enough.
Victoria Murphy lives with her husband, Landon, in Crystal Springs, where they attend Harmony Baptist Church. Originally from Madison, Victoria is a nurse in the pediatric emergency department at UMMC. She and Landon have two dogs, a German shepherd named Ace and a Labradoodle named Maggie.
Support the Murphys at the Landon Murphy Golf Classic
- When: 9 a.m. Tuesday, May 19
- Where: Live Oaks Golf Course, 11200 US-49 N, Jackson
- Tickets and sponsorship info: FirstRespondersOfMS.com