Who could have known that a bone infection could wreak so much havoc? Sometimes both our physical and emotional childhood wounds heal. . . on the outside, but inside they can continue to fester and wreak havoc, spreading infection throughout our entire body and no one can seem to figure it out.

Nearly a month after my fifth birthday, I came home from St. Paul’s hospital, but my health did not improve. My mother’s sister Rita, a nurse in Chicago, told my parents to bring me to Chicago Kenner Hospital where they had a blood radiation machine. Chicago was far away. I remember riding on the train with my mother, who carried me because I could no longer walk. Daddy had to stay in Dalmeny to work and Aunt Mary took care of baby Dicky. Once we got to Chicago, I remember my hospital room, seeing black people for the first time in my life, the strict nurse I grew to dislike, and the little boy who drank from his bed pan. I don’t even remember all the medical tests but  T.B. of the bone was suspected. One night Mommy and Alice, a black Christian cleaning lady, prayed over me. Mommy put her hand on my knee and asked God to “kill that germ.” More tests. Yet, each test for T.B. came back negative.

A month passed and Daddy joined us in Chicago with Dicky. The doctors performed surgery on my knee to scrape out the infection, and then put my leg in traction. I had to lie flat on my back with my right leg held up in the air with weights and pulleys. I remember the embarrassment of having my Mommy help me change underwear and get them over and around the bars since there was no way to get my leg loose from the bars.

Another month passed and Christmas arrived with lights and a large plastic, lit-up Santa. The doctor fit me with a long brace that went all the way up my leg and locked at the knee so it could not bend. Finally at the end of January, I could go home because the doctor said there was nothing more they could do for me. His last words were, “I still say she has T.B. of the bone.” As far as they were concerned, they sent me home to die. We traveled back to Canada and Daddy bought a two-story, white house in Saskatoon. I had to wear ugly brown shoes that were attached to the brace but. . . at least I could walk. The swelling and pain continued and they prayed for a miracle.

King David said God desires truth in the inward parts, and in the hidden part He will make me to know wisdom (Psalm 51:6). GOD knows where we hurt and why. He is the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort who comforts us in all our troubles (2 Cor. 1:3-4). Sometimes all we can do is pray and wait for God to do what we cannot do—to heal us from the inside out, and sometimes that can take a very long time.