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annkilter

Category Archives: faith

Blessings

14 Saturday Mar 2015

Posted by Ann Kilter in Achievement, faith, Not autism

≈ 9 Comments

Tags

achievement, asperger's, autism, blessings, history

What a year this has been.

Patty has been admitted to university to study for her masters degree in history. Yesterday, they offered her a tuition waiver and teacher assistant position with a stipend.

Mary started her job in February.

Will bought his house and moved in February.

In the midst of Ralph’s health issues, wonderful things are happening in our children’s lives.

I am unsettled about Patty moving 400 miles from home (by car), but the Lord says to my spirit, “Trust me. Trust me.” Patty has said that she feels it is her calling to teach history at the college level. I have to let her spread her wings.

Uncertainty

31 Wednesday Dec 2014

Posted by Ann Kilter in Asperger's syndrome, Autism, faith, Health Crisis

≈ 7 Comments

The last time I face this much uncertainty in my life, I was 25. I was a week away from graduating from college, and I had just found out that I had a cyst the size of a grapefruit on my left ovary. The gynecologist at the college said that I needed surgery as soon as I could get it scheduled. I told her that I wanted to walk across  the stage for my graduation, and I wanted to have the surgery at a hospital near my home. So she gave me a referral to a specialist near my hometown.

I remember sitting on the edge of a large sculpture at Michigan State University, looking out to the distance and praying. It was very early in the morning and very few people were out. I can’t remember the exact words I said to the Lord. But I remember surrendering. Not my will, but thine, I said. I could not see the future.

After graduation, I went home and saw the specialist. Before surgery, several tests were done. After the ultrasound of the cyst, he told me that it didn’t look good. He told my mother he thought it was ovarian cancer, but he didn’t say that to me. After the five-hour surgery, my mother said he came out of the operating room with such a look of relief. It was Stage IV endometriosis, not cancer. After eight days, I went home, still not knowing anything about my future except that I wasn’t going to die of ovarian cancer within the next year.

Today, I am taking Ralph to the cardiologist.

When Ralph was in the hospital for pneumonia, they took an echo-cardiogram, and he was diagnosed with congestive heart failure, pulmonary hypertension, and cardiomyopathy. Today the cardiologist will begin the process of finding out the degree of disease and course of treatment. Or at least we hope he can give us more information. I don’t know what the doctor will say. I just have a list of diagnoses at this point.

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There are a lot of unknowns in our life right now.

Will Ralph recover enough to go back to work?

Should he go back to work?

If he goes back to work, will they keep him or will his job be gone? His FMLA runs out as of Monday, and he is definitely not ready to return to work at this time.

Will he be able to drive again?

Will his insurance run out? If his short-term disability is not renewed, he will not have insurance through his company. Insurance for him at my company is prohibitive and would take 3/4s of my income each month. I don’t know if we will have health insurance next month.

Will he recover enough from his surgeries and pneumonia to enjoy his life? At what level will he be functioning? What kind of care will he need? Will I be able to keep my job or give it up to care for him?

Will we need to move from our four bedroom house to an apartment? To a condo? Or will we stay here? I don’t know.

How will Mary get to work if I can’t take her? What should her living situation be? It looks like she is going to be hired for the government call center as a computer support person.

I told my friend Trinka last Sunday night, “The last time I had this much uncertainty in my life, I was 25 and facing surgery for the what the doctor thought was ovarian cancer. Only this time, I have more responsibilities.”

I have to think not just about my own life, but about the lives of my loved ones. I can’t envision the future beyond the next month, sometimes, not beyond the next day.

But there are some things that I do know.

I know the God who knows the future.

“And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.” Romans 8:28

I know the God of whom it can be said, “His Love endures forever.”

I know that God loves us.

“For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” John 3:16

I know that God desires that we go to him as well with our burdens.

“Cast your cares on the Lord, and he will sustain you.” Psalm 55:22

I know that God answers our prayers for wisdom. I sure need some right now, but that is what waiting on the Lord is about…waiting to see what he will bring to my attention or knowledge.

I know that God has provided for us through the prayers, and acts of kindness from those around us.

Nightspren

17 Thursday Jul 2014

Posted by Ann Kilter in faith

≈ 5 Comments

Tags

asperger's, autism, Corrie ten Boom, faith, Nightspren, prayer, worry

At the behest of my daughter, Patty, I have been reading The Way of Kings by Brandon Sanderson. There is a type of creature, sort of, which appears when certain processes occur, both emotional and physical. Sort of a mix between spirits and vibes. So there are angerspren, painspren, gloryspren, deathspren. Lately, I’ve been plagued by Nightspren or maybe worryspren. I suppose you could attach any worry or concern or difficulty or even achievement to “spren.” Sort of a superstitious way of looking at the world. Or possibly a description similar to the idea of giving off a vibe.

Like many parents of kids with autism, I am sometimes awakened in the middle of the night with concerns. Patty says, “Why don’t you call it what it is, Mom. Just plain worry.” She is right of course, no matter how much I try to euphemize it. I think I must give off a vibe. Sometimes, when I am intensely concerned about something, Ralph will walk in from another room and say, “What? What’s going on?” I didn’t say anything. He couldn’t even see me. Sometimes he’ll call me…at work. “Did you call me?” he’ll say. “No, but I was thinking about you intensely.” A kind of telepathy. Perhaps spren is just another idea for processes in the world that we can’t see and don’t understand. Only in The Way of Kings, Sanderson’s characters can see them.

So in the middle of the night, I am pestered by small and large worries:

Mary will be starting training for a job at a computer help desk in 10 days. We hope that she will be able to learn computer language, but what if she can’t? Her spelling is terrible, although she has learned how to use tools available in Microsoft and other programs (like WP) to assist her. What if she gets through the program, but doesn’t pass the certification test? What if she passes everything, but doesn’t get hired for the job? What if she gets the job, but can’t handle the help-line calls? What if my car breaks down? Or the hours mean I can’t drive her back and forth and she has to take the bus? What if the bus doesn’t come in time? And you can see how this goes, round and round my mind goes, racing faster and faster.

And then I think about Patty, and Will, and my job, Ralph’s job, finances, health, war, famine, and pestilence, etc.

From both a physical and spiritual standpoint, I need to stop this; turn it off.

Physically, I have bipolar disorder, and I can’t tolerate sleepless nights for long without having an episode. Sleepless nights also affect my ability to function during the day. Physically, I can quit tossing and turning and get up out of bed, eat something, read a book, clean something that has been bugging me, take pain meds if pain is issue, get a warmer blanket, or find a way to distract myself (usually, the history channel) and then go back to bed.

Spiritually, worry chips away at my faith, my confidence, my strength. Corrie ten Boom, a Christian who survived the death camps during the holocaust, commented, “Worry does not empty tomorrow of its sorrow, it empties today of its strength.” I’ve been awake since 3:00 a.m. (one of many early wakings in the last several weeks). Spiritually, St. Peter encourages us to cast our cares upon the Lord, for he cares for you. (I Peter 5:7). If something is waking me up in the middle of the night, it is an opportunity to bring it to the Lord in prayer.

Sometimes if something is waking me up in the middle of the night, it may be time to repent or make a change in our lives. At times, my night time struggles have caused me to own up to going the wrong way in my life (to break up with a boyfriend). Or sometimes, a night time awakening has led me to make a change (Instead of going back to school to become a teacher, I became a legal secretary).

Sleep deprived nights can occur due to circumstances beyond our control. Then what? One of my Sunday School teachers, Ken, was in a wheelchair and on oxygen. He was often in the hospital for extended periods of time. One Sunday when he was able to make it to our class, he said, “When I am in the hospital and can’t sleep due to the pain, I pray for each one of you by name in the watches of the night.” I miss him. Sometimes I have found that when I pray for others in the watches of the night, sleep does come. Not always.

King David from the Old Testament was troubled, yet spiritually sensitive to God. He spent many sleepless nights, sometimes due to his own failures. Yet he wrote of his struggles with sleep in Psalm 63.

On my bed I remember you;
    I think of you through the watches of the night.
7 Because you are my help,
    I sing in the shadow of your wings.
8 I cling to you;
    your right hand upholds me. Psalm 63:6-8

night_sky_hd

What do you find helps when you are pestered with sleepless nights?

Christmas Meanderings

25 Wednesday Dec 2013

Posted by Ann Kilter in Asperger's syndrome, Autism, faith

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

asperger's, autism, Christmas, Christmas past

Very shortly, my car will be covered with snow…again.

But the aroma of cinnamon rolls is wafting throughout the house, the tree is illuminating the living room, Ralph is preparing the turkey, and all is quiet.

No excited children up at this hour, that time is in the past for us. They all are sleeping, home, snug in their beds.

I am enjoying all of the pictures of young children on Facebook awaiting Christmas. Going to bed early, leaving cookies for Santa, up very early, sitting around the tree.

When our kids were young, Christmas pictures were shared after Christmas…through the mail or in person. Christmas wishes for those far away were wished by telephone. We used to call my parents, who lived in Florida at the time, and sing “We wish you a Merry Christmas.”

Some of our traditions still linger. We still buy a box of Whitman’s chocolates and open them when everyone is home. We still put up the giant Christmas tree that touches the ceiling, even though this year, it is the worse for wear. We’ve never been able to put an angel or star on top…even with a ladder.

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Yet it has been our tree for 17 years, filled with ornaments bought or made year by year. We have too many ornaments now to put on our giant trees. Maybe we’ll start passing some of them on to the kids for their own trees in a few years.

Well, the cinnamon rolls have roused one sleeping 20 something from her bed…so I need to go.

May you have a blessed Christmas.

Ann

 

Giving Thanks versus Being Thankful

21 Saturday Dec 2013

Posted by Ann Kilter in Asperger's syndrome, Autism, diagnosis, Disability, faith, Miracles

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

faith, give thanks, joni earekson tada, thankfulness

“AS a matter of fact, God isn’t asking you to be thankful. He’s asking you to give thanks. There’s a big difference. One response involves emotions, the other your choices, your decisions about a situation, your intent, your ‘step of faith.”
― Joni Eareckson Tada, A Place of Healing: Wrestling with the Mysteries of Suffering, Pain, and God’s Sovereignty

Joni is one of the world’s longest surviving quadriplegics. She has been in her wheelchair since 1967, when she had a diving accident as a teenager. Despite this, or maybe because of this, God has used this event in her life to bless millions of people. Her paintings, her books, and her ministry to provide wheelchairs around the world to disabled people are just a few of the ways God has used her to bless the lives of others.

http://www.joniandfriends.org/jonis-corner/

I have read her devotional, Diamonds in the Dust, over and over since the 1990s. It has been a rich source of encouragement and faith building challenge.

Shortly after Will was diagnosed with autism, I wrote a letter to her regarding one of my favorite passages from the Bible, I Thessalonians 5:16-18*, which she read on the air during one of her radio broadcasts in the early 1990s.

Giving thanks is an act of faith.

Don’t beat yourself up because you don’t feel thankful.

20 “for whenever our heart condemns us, God is greater than our heart, and he knows everything.” I John 3:20.

He knows our struggles, he knows that we are dust. Jesus says, “28 “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. 29 Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. 30 For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”” Matthew 11:28-30.

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*(16 Rejoice always, 17 pray without ceasing, 18 give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.)

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