Part 4: When Others Started to Notice
“In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.”
—John 16:33 (NIV)
I was six and a half years old when I started first grade. My teacher was Mrs. Murphy, a kind, middle-aged woman who felt gentle and steady to me. I wish I could say I remembered a lot about that year, yet most of it remains blurred. If it weren’t for the class photo, I’m not sure I would remember any of my classmates at all. Although many of them stayed with me for years, the memories of that first year never fully formed, blending quietly into what came later. What stands out instead is a general sense of routines in the classroom rather than the relationships within it. I loved art, music, and spelling, and I enjoyed the early stages of learning to read. Math and other subjects barely register in my memory.
What I do remember clearly is the constant, private anxiety surrounding my diaper. Was it soiled? Could anyone smell me or hear it crinkle when I walked? How long could I manage before I had to find a way to hide the need to change it? That concern mattered far more than anything related to schoolwork.
I never cared much for recess, and I’m not entirely sure why. I don’t remember being teased that year. That would come later. Something about recess simply didn’t feel enjoyable to me.
Every morning my mom packed my lunch, and underneath my food she tucked a clean diaper. My routine was to take my lunchbox to the restroom after eating and change my diaper. I have no vivid memory of doing this, yet I know I must have done it daily. I remember feeling a constant pressure to keep everything a secret. I was responsible for handling it on my own.
I’ve often wondered why my mom didn’t coordinate with the school nurse to create a better system. I could have used the nurse’s restroom and kept supplies there. Perhaps she didn’t want to inconvenience anyone, or maybe it simply didn’t cross her mind. More than likely, she believed I could manage it myself, which I was. After all, by six, I had already been changing my own diaper for years.
Midway through the school year, I began getting sick. I remember visiting the school office repeatedly with headaches and fevers. I’d go home for a day or two, see the doctor, and be diagnosed with a UTI. They’d put me on antibiotics. I’d get a little better, and then the cycle would repeat.
I remember these frequent doctor visits and the routine of giving urine samples. My mom would take me into the bathroom stall with the little collection cup and ask me to go into it, which I did. She would hold the cup up to the light to check its clarity. If the urine looked cloudy to her, she would dump it out and ask me to try again. Looking back, it’s almost comical because, in microbiology, even the clearest urine can still be full of bacteria.
What this really showed was that my mom was full of anxiety and wanted the best result, which in her mind meant the clearest urine sample possible. I remember trying repeatedly with little success, and even when the sample looked clear, the test results were whatever they were going to be. My efforts didn’t change the outcome.
I find this both sad and slightly humorous now. It reveals how desperately I wanted to please my mom, how much she wanted the best outcome for me, and how both of us were trying to satisfy expectations: hers, mine, and the doctors’.
Eventually, the doctors ordered an intravenous pyelogram, an X-ray of the kidneys and ureters. The results revealed the truth. I had a large kidney stone completely blocking my left kidney. The kidney was dying, which explained why I kept getting sick. Whether this was related to the ureterosigmoidostomy, chronic reflux, congenital issues, or a combination of everything, no one could say for certain.
I was then sent to Oakland Children’s Hospital for yet another surgery. I was old enough now to feel fear in a way I hadn’t before. The surgery would be major. The incision wrapped about one-third around my left side, with drains placed throughout the incision. I remember being in the hospital for many days and being filled with fear the entire time.
This is also the first time I clearly remember asking my mom to speak with the nurses before she left for the night. I needed reassurance that nothing would be done after visiting hours. I was terrified of being alone during procedures. My mom always checked, and the nurses always said they had no orders for additional interventions. Yet something usually happened after she left, often late in the night.
I remember feeling betrayed, though I couldn’t make sense of who was responsible. Were the nurses lying to my mom? Were the doctors simply adding orders later? Were my parents misunderstanding something? At this age, I saw everything in black and white. If an adult said something, I believed it. When reality didn’t match, I interpreted it as dishonesty. I didn’t yet have the emotional tools to understand hospital delays, shift changes, or late medical decisions.
All I knew was that my trust in adult authority, doctors, nurses, even my parents, was broken.
I never returned to school that year. I don’t remember much of first grade or anything about that summer. My foggy memory jumps from starting the year, getting sick, going into surgery, and then healing at home for a long stretch. I didn’t have a tutor, and nothing was offered to help me catch up academically.
By the time second grade arrived, I was already behind emotionally, physically, and academically. First grade had lasted only a few months for me, yet it shaped far more of my childhood than I understood at the time. My mind had been playing out its own truth long before I had the words to explain it.
Years later, I would read Jesus’ words that gave meaning to what I began to experience then: “In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world” (John 16:33). First grade was when I encountered real trouble, not just physically, but emotionally. At six years old, I didn’t understand what overcoming meant. It has taken years for me to begin connecting those words to what I lived. I only knew how to endure, quietly and mostly alone.
What does it mean to “take heart” when trouble arrives before you even understand what trouble is?
What does overcoming look like when you are six years old and simply trying to survive?
Jesus promised that trouble would come. He also promised that He had already overcome it. First grade was when I began to feel the weight of both.
The devotional for this post explores what it means to rebuild trust after it has been quietly fractured—offering Scripture, prayer, and reflection for those who learned early how to endure before they knew how to process.