When they did not read my name, I felt alarm, raised my hand, and told the teacher, “I am slow.” The teachers quietly conferred, then allowed me to leave. It was the first day of fourth grade in Carrot River. The teachers read off names of the slower kids and assigned them to a cottage classroom. I had heard my mother say I was slow, but only years later did she explain that I was not a slow learner, but polio had slowed my energy. By the time I learned the truth, the damage was done. I was convinced I was slow, perhaps even retarded. The trauma, especially for a highly sensitive child, of changing schools twice a year for three years and adjusting to new curriculum, new teachers, new kids, and new sub-cultures every few months, reinforced the lie.

We moved back to Saskatoon after harvest into a house no bigger than a studio apartment with a basement. Our beds bordered the basement furnace and I played house under the stairs. Daddy sold McGeven’s Bread, my uncle delivered milk in a horse-drawn wagon, and I walked by myself to another large and strange school. Christmas programs came and went with few memories. For a short time toward the end of winter, I got to stop on the way home from school to attend a Bible Club where a very nice old-maid teacher, Mrs. Lepke, taught Bible stories with flannel graphs.

Early spring came and three girls began following me home, pulled my pony tail, kicked, and mocked me. Finally, in a rage spurned by fear, I screamed the worst thing I could possibly invent, “I hope you go to hell!” I was surprised at the shock on their faces as they backed off. Not long afterward, the girls waited for me again around the corner of the school. However, Daddy, Mommy, and Dicky came to pick me up that day in a brand new red station wagon to leave for Carrot River, and rescued me from my enemies!

Thankfully back in Carrot River, I invited kids on the school bus to come to Sunday School and told them my parents would pick them up. So when Sundays came, my parents used their new red station wagon to pick up children for church, which was miles and miles of country driving. When our station wagon became overcrowded, Daddy bought a panel truck to bring the kids to church.

That year he also put in a generator so our house had electricity. He built a bathroom complete with bathtub, sink, and honey bucket. He also built a garage onto the house and we put the milk/cream separator in the porch, since we now had a milk cow. Dicky’s and my beds had been moved into the unfinished attic on either side of the chimney, which we also shared with overnight visitors each summer. But late that fall, Daddy hired a man to finish our attic with two bedrooms and a closet between them.

Finally we could stay on the farm through the winter, and I did not have to change schools anymore. Dicky and I built snow forts and snowmen that didn’t melt until spring. Mommy still had to dry clothes outside on the clothesline where they froze. Then she brought them in and stood them up near the floor furnace grate between the kitchen and living room to finish drying. I remember being amazed how the long underwear could stand up all by itself. I finally had a friend I could keep all year. Her name was Ruthie. After church on Sundays we went to each other’s homes and made wonderful memories.

I look back now and realize God purposes to redeem the tough things in our lives by making us aware of our need for Him and to make us thankful for good things. Without changing schools, thinking I was a slow-learner, or feeling lonely and fearful, I may have excelled and succeeded in many areas of life. . . and become arrogant and unthankful. So, by God’s severe and loving mercy, He allowed me to experience my weaknesses, sins, and inability to succeed without Him, to eventually draw me into an intimately loving relationship with Himself—a far greater gain. I am thankful!