Kathleen Knapp is a Christian author and Speaker from Western Canada. Her memoir, Speechless: A Mother's Memoir of Caregiving, won the 2026 International Christian Book Award for Christian Memoir. She also wrote Navigating Grief: A Journey of Hope & Healing. Her work appears in Guideposts, Chicken Soup for the Soul, Unveiled Living E-Magazine, and several Christian anthologies. Drawing on 35 years as a Registered Nurse and her own caregiving journey with her late son, Kathleen writes to bring hope to grieving and special-needs families. When she is not playing pickleball, she enjoys a good book or coffee with a friend.

You can find more of her work on her website: http://KathleenKnappWriter.com .

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Welcome to 12 Minute Convos with Jesus Believers.

God chose first to have a conversation with us, his creation.

Our prayer is that this listening space brings growth and transforms your life forever.

I live in Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan, Canada.

So we are pretty well in the middle of the country on the flat part.

So this is what they refer to as the breadbasket of Canada because it is beautiful.

They call it the land of the living skies because it's full of grain and wheat and canola and all sorts of other produce.

Because it's so flat, it just has a beautiful sky all the time.

And you can see for miles and miles and miles.

So Canada is a beautiful country.

It's quite varied from coast to coast.

We used to live in the eastern part and now we're now in the western part.

How far is it from the eastern part, Toronto specifically?

So we used to live two hours north of Toronto in the cottage country area.

We were close to a lake and had lots of trees and we moved 3,000 kilometers.

And how long ago was this move?

My husband and I and our son moved here five years ago after the death of our other son.

And so it was just during the latter time of COVID.

I was born and raised in Ontario, Canada.

So this was new to me and my husband.

We'd never even visited here.

And so it was a huge move, one that God definitely led.

At one point when I questioned what we were doing, my daily reading that day was Abraham being called from the land of his fathers and told to go where God was sending him.

And that sort of was a good confirmation of our move.

So here we are.

You made mention of your son.

My deepest condolences.

Five years within grief time feels as though it's six months, yeah?

Some days, yes.

He passed away in 2020.

And so it was a year after he died that we moved.

So he's been gone just over six years.

Yeah.

Was he the older of the both of them?

So our sons were twins.

We have a daughter that's two years older and our boys were twins.

And he was the younger twin, but only by 10 minutes.

And our boys were both diagnosed with autism at the age of three.

But shortly after, our son Benjamin was diagnosed with a brain tumor.

And so he had treatment for that, surgery and radiation.

And we were told to carry on and just deal with our autism in life.

But a year later, they found two new tumors in the front of his brain.

And so he again had surgery.

He couldn't have any more radiation, but he had chemotherapy.

And then a trans, sorry, autologous, you'll have to edit that, sorry, autologous bone marrow transplant, which he wasn't expected to survive.

This was sort of a palliative treatment.

But miraculously, through the power of prayer and modern medicine, he did survive.

And so he did struggle with many health issues over his years.

But he was 26 when he died.

And he was nonverbal autism and full care.

So he could walk, he could feed himself, but he was full care in our home.

And so we did struggle with a lot over the years.

But God was faithful, healed him many times.

But of course, now he's had his perfect healing, because he's in heaven with Jesus.

And the move that you guys made, would you say that he is responsible for it in some way?

When you look back today?

Well, he allowed it because of his needs and the support that we had in the community where we were living.

Once he died, we were sort of free to move.

And because it was COVID and people were moving out of the Toronto area and from the cities into the country area, the housing prices were rising dramatically.

And we prayed about it.

And we thought if we could sell our home and move somewhere, where would we go?

And so the move did allow us to semi-retire.

And so we are both heavily involved in our community church here in Moose Jaw.

I'm actually on staff as the Director of Small Group Ministries and began writing out of that grief journey.

Initially, it was just through my journaling with my therapist at the time, because of grief counseling.

And she said, your writing is actually pretty good.

Have you ever thought of sharing it?

And so that's led me on a five-year journey as an author and a speaker.

I've self-published two devotional books and just recently published a book about the life of a caregiver with my son and through his cancer journey and autism journey and his death and the subsequent grief journey.

That just published in the spring of this year.

It's called Speechless, A Mother's Memoir of Caregiving by Kathleen Knapp.

It's available on Amazon.

And so that details sort of the journey that we had, me specifically as his mom and caregiver.

And so I often write and speak about the hope that we have in our grief journey through our faith in Christ, not only for the hope of heaven, but the hope that we have in this life, in our grief journey, that God is with us and he can bring beauty from ashes and he does comfort the brokenhearted.

So yes, his death definitely brought me closer to God, even though there were times during his life where I struggled with my faith, wondering what God was doing.

Benjamin's life actually touched a lot of people and sometimes through our struggles, you find that God uses those struggles to bring others closer to the Lord, but also it does eventually strengthen our own faith.

I totally agree with that.

What would you say if I told you the first person I spoke to today had a twin that was going through medical treatment because one could have been lost for the other to live, but she made mention that she was adamant that God gave her the two of them and she's going to have them.

What would you say if I told you that was the first conversation I had just around 5am?

Let me get the exact time.

Well, that's God, right?

I call them divine appointments.

I don't think there are coincidences in life.

I think that there's a lot of those that we call coincidences that are actually God-appointed moments and I praise God for her testimony and I pray for her child.

Come on, I'll connect you both to have a conversation.

There's no coincidences here.

Yeah, but how did you meet Jesus?

Initially, I was not raised in a Christian home, although I knew about Jesus because in Canada during that time, I mean, I'm a bit older, we still had prayer in schools, which they don't anymore and so it was a lot more, Christianity was a lot more apparent.

I attended a, I guess a revival type meeting when I was 16 years old that was a Teen Challenge choir came through our town and David Wilkerson actually had initiated the Teen Challenge ministries after his experiences with Nikki Cruz, if you're aware of the book called Run Baby Run.

I don't know how popular it is now, but it was big in the 70s and so that's when I first made a commitment.

Unfortunately, being that I was in my teens and didn't get a good solid foundation, I did walk away and rebel for a few years.

I always knew that Jesus was with me.

I always knew I was going to heaven, even though I thought, oh, I'm going to have some explaining to do when I get there.

But at 23, there was a specific incident in my life

where I knew that I couldn't sit on the fence any longer

and through some supernatural experiences,

I had a real call back and so it was a bit dramatic

and basically in a nutshell, I'd been teetering,

you know, between Christianity and searching some other things

and I had a one night demonic visitation

when I cried out to Jesus

because that's what I knew my spirit to do.

I ended up having two angels visit me in my apartment and at that time, I knew God was saying I couldn't dabble between two anymore.

I had to make a decision and I came back to the Lord.

Shortly after, I met my husband who had been raised in a Christian home.

He was a missionary kid.

I thought he was way too nice for me, but anyway, we've been married 38 years, so it's worked.

Congratulations, wow.

Thank you.

Five years from today, you're listening to this conversation.

What's a message you'd leave for future you?

My future you is just keep going, keep doing what God's called you to do.

I never imagined five years ago that I would be where I am now.

I never imagined that God would call me to do the things that I'm doing now, but when I embarked on this journey after Ben's death and after we moved out this way and I started writing, I said to God that I would do whatever he asked, that if an opportunity came my way, my answer would be yes, even if it was scary, even if it was with fear and trepidation, if I was asked, then I would say yes.

And so it's been exciting and kind of scary to see the doors that have opened, the writing that has been done, the speaking opportunities, the sharing, the ministry at our church, the people that God brings before us.

I think if we're open and willing to follow where he leads us, it's an exciting journey.

So five years from now, I don't know, it'll be just keep doing what God's asking me to do and praise God.

Kathleen, a pleasure.

My treasure.

Thank you for being what is inspired by Toil Malikon.