Elizabeth Best

How would I describe Elizabeth Best? Grace under fire.

Elizabeth is a successful lawyer with the Family Court Legal Program at Pace University’s Women’s Justice Center. She is in her 16th year assisting people in need of orders of protection and emergency shelter, and she trains law students to do the same. Elizabeth also has a master’s degree in Mental Health from Alliance Theological Seminary, and Elizabeth and her husband, Wally, lead the pre-marital counseling ministry at Reach Church in Westchester, New York. Yet, Elizabeth is no stranger to trials and tribulation. In fact, she says, “That’s how we get strong”.

When Elizabeth was 23, she was diagnosed with lupus. She became deathly ill, and she was given 23 hours to live. She was admitted into the Intensive Care Unit and placed on a ventilator. She was told she wouldn’t make it through the night, but Elizabeth says, “God had other plans”. Elizabeth was still on dialysis when she got married three years later, and she was on dialysis all throughout law school. She received her law degree and waited for a kidney transplant while she was studying for the bar exam. She was told that she would never be able to have children, and just like Hannah, Elizabeth poured her heart out to the Lord. About a year later, during an ultrasound of her kidneys, Elizabeth was informed that she was pregnant with her miracle baby – James! Elizabeth continued to study for the bar while she was waiting for a kidney donor and on the day of the exam, she got the call she had been waiting for. So instead of taking the exam that day, she had a kidney transplant - and it was a success! Soon after, Elizabeth had the baby, and she passed the bar!

Elizabeth says, “God’s hand was in it all along”. Looking back, Elizabeth remembers when she was just 15 years old, she had decided to surrender her life to the Lord and remembers saying to Him, “It’s just you and me now”. Elizabeth says she takes it just one day at a time and counts it all joy when she falls into various trials (James 1:2). “I have so much joy”, Elizabeth says, “He keeps me.”