Have you noticed how certain insecurities from childhood seem to stick to us like peanut butter and jelly? No matter how many times we wipe our faces and fingers, it just spreads sticky stuff into adulthood and we feel and react to things without even knowing why. I struggle with unexplainable apprehensions to be alone in unfamiliar places and with strangers. I wondered if it might not be a good idea to trace these feelings back to their origin and ask the LORD to shed His light on them and redeem them by revealing more of Himself to me through them.

I loved to visit my cousins, Irvin, Shirley, and Joycie. We played house mostly, or Shirley read stories to us. A year after I survived polio, Irvin and Shirley took us to the school playground nearby and pushed Joycie and me on the swings. Suddenly I lost my grip and a strong push flew me through the air and I landed on my knees in the gravel. I remember bleeding and being inconsolable with pain as they held me up on each side and half carried me back to their house.

Some weeks went by and my knee healed on the outside, but inside something was wrong. It ached, was fevered, and stiffened at a forty-five degree angle. On my fourth birthday, September 27, 1952, I entered St. Paul’s Hospital in Saskatoon. To avoid “unnecessary drama,” parents were not allowed to visit their children at that hospital. Every day they came to see me but could only stand outside and look up at my second story window.

Imagine leaving your desperately sick four-year-old in a medical institution and not see them for three weeks while doctors experiment to diagnose the illness. Who will ever know what they did and with what drugs!? I remember lying in a large crib with iron bars, watching people—nurses, doctors, and sick children in beds that rolled by. I don’t remember much else, except a few months later I do remember a nightmare, one of many, of a witch standing over me as I lay on a table while Mommy sat on a bench at the back of the room weeping.

Finally, the doctors diagnosed me with a rare blood disease and sent me home. When my parents came to pick me up after those three weeks, they hardly recognized me! Cortisone shots had puffed up my whole body. One of the nurses told my Mommy that when she first saw my knee, she said, “Holy cow!” But she said I told her that cows were not holy. Only God was holy. She also told Mommy that it was important to me to pray every night.

In spite of all the insecurities that stuck to me from those weeks of illness, I’m amazed that God drew me to talk to Him every night. I had never stopped to imagine God being so intimately involved with my life at that time until now. As I grew older, I always figured that was my parent’s trial, not mine, since I hardly remembered it.  Yet, He must have comforted me through my fears, loneliness, pain, and illness with His own very Presence as He continues to do today. That trauma as well as God’s care became embedded into my subconscious memory banks. It’s all still there somehow affecting my emotions and choices to this day.

Psalm 27:10 says, “When my father and my mother forsake me, Then the LORD will take care of me.” I fully believe He remained at my side the whole time, every day, every night—watching, loving, tenderly speaking His peace into my mind and heart because He promised, “Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you” Hebrews 13:5.

These events could very well be the source of insecurities that stuck to me through my life. Yet to realize today how intimately God was with me, watching over me, caring for me, and intending to use it all for good, leaves me in awe of His faithfulness. Though He does not shield us from all harm, He does promise to use it for our good and His glory.

More traumatic events were yet to come. As I bring these memories before God’s light, I pray He will encourage both you and me with a deeper understanding to live fully in the security of His love and care.