In the days leading to her passing, Miriam Ekirapa Musaali, a distinguished corporate lawyer, governance expert, and one of Uganda’s most respected financial-sector minds, left behind more than a professional legacy. She left behind a profound spiritual testimony.
In August 2025, during an intimate online prayer session with friends, Miriam delivered what would become one of the most moving accounts of personal resilience, faith, and unbroken hope ever shared by a Ugandan business leader confronting terminal illness.
Her words did not just describe a battle with cancer. They revealed a woman who faced unimaginable pain with clarity, conviction, and a depth of courage that became her final gift to those who loved and admired her.
“My life moved from 1,000 to zero in minutes.”
Miriam recounted the moment her world shifted. One week, she was a thriving professional, mother, and wife; days later, she was fighting for her life.
“I thought my life was supposed to be perfect … and then suddenly, in 2023, I felt my life move from 1,000 to zero in a matter of minutes.”
What began as stomach discomfort spiraled into endless tests, uncertainty, and finally, a diagnosis that upended everything she knew: “Before I knew it, I was diagnosed with stage four metastatic colon cancer. It hit me like a hurricane, like a tsunami from nowhere.”
A journey through fire and faith
Her medical journey was brutal, including more than 25 sessions of chemotherapy, hormonal therapy, two major surgeries, and over 66 flights for treatment. Yet, she insisted on seeing herself not as a victim, but as someone passing through a storm rather than sinking in it.
“Isaiah 43 says: ‘When you pass through the waters, I will be with you … when you walk through the fire, you will not be burned’. I held onto that. I was passing through.”
Even on nights when pain denied her sleep, when doctors could not explain the intensity or source, she chose prayer over despair.
“Fear is a choice, just like faith is a choice.”
Her testimony repeatedly returned to this idea: that endurance is a daily decision.
The strength of a family’s love
Miriam’s recounting of her family’s support, her husband, children, and sisters, was among the most emotional sections of her testimony.
Her husband became her refuge in the darkest hours: “I would wake up in pain, and my husband would wake up because he couldn’t sleep. I’d hold his hand and say, ‘Jack, let us pray in the Spirit.’ And we would begin to pray and intercede.”
Her sisters rotated shifts accompanying her for chemotherapy, advocating for second opinions, and keeping her spirits alive.
As she battled cancer, another blow struck: her mother’s illness and eventual passing.
“I would come from chemotherapy in Nairobi and run down to see my mom … life was so hard.”
Still, Miriam found the strength to keep going, not for herself alone, but for the people she loved.
A battle on every front, emotional, financial, spiritual
She was candid about the crushing financial weight of treatment: “We spent over UGX 500 million on medical bills alone.”
Stanbic, Absa and Centenary Control Nearly Half of Uganda’s Bancassurance Market as Premiums Top UGX 302 BillionYet her testimony was not one of lack, but provision: “We owe no one. We did not do any fundraising. We looked only to Jehovah Jireh.”
She was equally open about the emotional toll: the fear, the uncertainty, the nights when she wondered where God was in all of it.
But even in these moments, she anchored herself: “When you go through the pit, and there’s no bottom left, there is only one way to go—up.”
Scripture as her medicine
In Istanbul, Turkey, fresh out of surgery and still in pain, Miriam asked for her laptop. She began typing what she called her “scripture cards”; verses she clung to like oxygen.
Her husband would visit her in ICU and read them aloud: “Those scriptures would take me until the next time he came.”
She described Scripture not as ritual but as survival: “I would read the Word of God like medicine. I would chew it like medicine.”
The depth of her faith
Even as the pain worsened, she refused to surrender hope. When doctors discovered that a tumor had fractured her rib, she responded not with despair but with a declaration:
“If the tumor has fractured my rib, then I have a new name for God: He is the healer of broken ribs.”
It is here that Miriam’s character shone brightest; her ability to confront devastating news with unwavering conviction.
Her final message: Choose faith
In her closing prayer, Miriam did not pray for healing for herself. She prayed for strength for everyone listening:
“Lord, you have given us a spirit of power, love and self-discipline … I pray that we shall discipline ourselves to read your Word, to pray without ceasing, to fast, and to overcome by choosing faith over fear.”
This was the heart of Miriam’s legacy: disciplined faith, courage through fire, and a refusal to be defined by suffering.
A legacy beyond the boardroom
Professionally, Miriam will be remembered as a formidable legal mind, a respected regulator, and a leader whose career spanned corporate governance, pensions, market supervision, and board advisory.
But this testimony reveals something deeper: A woman whose inner life was even stronger than her public achievements; a woman who faced death with clarity, peace, and unshaken belief; a woman who turned her suffering into a message of hope.
Her life, and her final words, remain a call to all who heard her: To choose faith. To remain strong. To keep passing through.
Miriam lived that truth until the end. And in doing so, she leaves behind a legacy of courage that will outlive the pain she endured.
May her soul rest in eternal peace.
