Preaching Christ: Power Made Perfect in Weakness

July 11, 2006
Dear Friends,
“What we preach is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord” (2 Corinthians 4:5). Over these last months while finishing up a sermon for my extended Gospel Communication class at Westminster Seminary here in Glenside, PA, I have been reminded of just how costly the grace of Christ is. But at the same time I have come to grips with how selfish my own heart is, so much so that if I don’t remind myself daily of Jesus’ death and resurrection on my behalf, I will undoubtedly take the opportunities He gives me through my disease for my own gain instead of His. The Lord of all glory has already sacrificied the very life of His only Son that I might spread His redeeming glory to all I meet! How could I ever be tempted to forget Him in the sufferings of daily living in a weak body? My vision of Christ as my only hope, purpose, and joy in life has been sharpened by the hardships this disease has brought upon me and my family.

I have also come to realize each day that Jesus is really all that I need. As Rebecca and I have had to trust the Lord to meet our physical needs of health and finances, we have also come to see how dependent we really need to be on Him for our spiritual vitality as well. Dear friends, do you know how active the Lord is in this world today? We have seen His worldwide church, spread everywhere from Jordan to Australia to our own backyard, be moved by the Spirit of God to provide for our financial needs and emotional encouragement at just the right moment countless times! Yet while our needs have been met, we have never been able to boast of it being from our own doing. Thank you to all who have been used by the Lord to take care of us!

FINANCES
Rebecca is now working part-time as an independent sales consultant for Xelex Digital, LLC, which averages 20 hours/wk, gives us high speed internet, and allows us to stay in touch with all of you. Food stamps have been providing most of our grocery money since April, but have now dropped down to $85/month because of the income of Rebecca’s job. Medicaid has provided me with low co-payments on my prescriptions since May, though it has been difficult to get prescriptions that are on the formulary list. My application for Supplimental Security Income has been denied because we now make too much money, though soon we will receive a couple of the lost months retroactively (more government paperwork). This month I start on Social Security Disability which will bring in $441/month. We are very thankful to be able to utilize these resources.

ON THE HOMEFRONT
The kitchen and office were organized beautifully last month while Rebecca’s parents relieved her for a week of caring for me, and she was able to do the majority of her correspondence course from Moody which she will complete next Thursday. What would we do without family and friends? Though gifts from friends have relieved much of our rent, electric, transportation, and health insurance costs, Dad and Mom Knaebel continue to pay whatever has remained. They have also lent us their mini-van indefinitely because it is easier for Chris to get in and out of, being higher off the ground than our Accord. We have truly been blessed with families who really do reflect for us the loving care that our heavenly Father has for each of His children.

While being virtually homebound these last five months, Rebecca and I have come to enjoy our oppportunities to have friends over for meals and visit with them. Sunday afternoons have become a treasured time in our weeks as we have begun to have both neighbors and church family into our home. I, Chris, have also had the privilege of mentoring a younger believer. What a joy to see another growing more to mirror the character of Jesus!

SCHOOL
My Westminster coursework for the spring was finally complete as of June 30th! Thank you all for your many prayers on my behalf. I even passed Greek with a high enough grade to not be re-examined when I take my ordination exams to become a pastor! The Lord truly is faithful, and apart from His sustaining grace, I know there is no way I could have done so well with all that happened this semester. Rebecca has only one more month left of her online Environmental Biology course. Continue to pray for her exhausting schedule of: working 20 hours/wk, caring for me & for the house, as well as completing these last couple of courses. She starts her final undergraduate class online in August, being completely finished college-- Lord willing-- in December.

My fall semester at Westminster begins September 7, and I’m registered in faith for a full load of 12 credits (including ancient Hebrew). The current Chancellor and former President of Westminster, Dr. Sam Logan (member of our church) recently agreed to be my advocate/mentor for the remainder of my time at seminary. He has already provided me with a backdoor library employee access card for easier wheelchair access and offered a helpful critique of my most recent sermon manuscript. How exciting to see the Lord continue to open doors for my return to seminary! Also, through a series of scholarships which I have received, the upcoming semester will be paid for, provided that I am able to continue as a full time student (taking at least 12 credits). It is possible to be granted an exception to this rule if I ask for it. Currently, I do not have the physical strength to be able to attend classes and keep up such rigorous coursework, so pray that if this be the Lord’s will for me, He will provide me with the ability to get well enough to return to school (in some fashion).

HEALTH
My neurologist at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia has not been impressed with the response to the oral steriods he has given me to treat my Dermatomyositis. Though we had seen significant improvement in strength during the first month after my hospitalization in February, it seems to have been only because of my alternate, one time in hospital treatment of IVIG. So, beginning in June, he ordered three additional IVIG treatments. The second round of these 14 hour treatments over two days will be next Wednesday and Thursday, the 19th & 20th. He is very hopeful that my strength will significantly improve following these very pricey treatments. As God would have it, insurance covers them all (anywhere from 8 to 20 thousand dollars each) as well as providing the treatments out of my home, complete with a nurse staying with me the entire time! This not only allows for a very comfortable environment and a more beneficial response to the treatment, but also allows Rebecca to continue her daily routine and work, uninterrupted! Praise God. So far it seems the first treatment has brought increased strength and energy. Also, the Lord kept both Rebecca and I from sickness, as well as safe, on the road as we traveled much these last months.

While in Seminary I have come to see my life verse from high school, 2 Corinthians 12:9, anew. Through my physical battle and the limitations that this has brought me, I now know Christ is my sufficient grace in physical weakness. I had always thrived on serving people with my hands, and thus was continually frustrated last semester as I helplessly watched my muscles waste away. His power really was made perfect in weakness. I now see Him teaching me the greater gift: looking beyond the physical acts of service and towards true spiritual needs. It was only through my physical immobility that the Lord gave me eyes to recognize the spiritual needs that have been surrounding me all along (e.g. hospitality to neighbors and mentoring a younger believer), while I am encouraged through the worldwide prayers of believing hearts. Like the Lord said to the apostle Paul in his weakness: “‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.’ Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong” (2 Corinthians 12:9-10).

The Joy of the Lord is our Strength,
Christopher & Rebecca

P.S. Check out our pictorial recap of these last months: http://flickr.com/photos/chris_rebecca_knaebel/

The Love of Jesus, Follow-up, & Rebecca's Process

April 12, 2006
Our Dear Friends,
Thank you all for your prayers. We have been wonderfully flooded by cards, visits, phone calls, & emails. We are greatly encouraged by your sacrifice for our sake. From all of the correspondence this trial has brought us, we can relate to Paul’s reflections of his friends at the church in Thessalonica: “So, being affectionately desirous of you, we were ready to share with you not only the gospel of God but also our own selves, because you had become very dear to us” (1 Thessalonians 2:8). We want to encourage you that the Lord Jesus Christ has used your prayers to keep us pressing on during the difficulties of these last months. Thank you for bearing with us our burdens. We have come to know the love of Jesus better thru His people’s serving us in our time of need. Thank you all for the part that you have played in this.

At the follow-up doctor visit on March 13, the doctor confirmed that I have Dermatomyositis, meaning that my immune system has been attacking my muscles for at least a year, mistaking them for an infection. This caused inflammation, muscle wasting, fatigue, and an increasingly weakened skeletal-muscular system (I lost 25 lbs in the hips, thighs, upper arms, top part of back, shoulder & neck areas). My wife Rebecca helps me during any weight transfers (especially from sitting to standing), and also with movement (I use a wheelchair when going out for energy conservation & a walker when in the apartment). She helps me to shower as well as making meals, doing housework, & assisting me to the bathroom. I require a nap or two a day to maintain the daily activities of doing Greek, taking care of finances, maintaining physical therapy, reading, & living.

I stood up from the bed by myself last week! Though I still fatigue quickly, this is definitely an improvement and an encouragement since I have not been able to do it even once since last semester. Also, the muscle breakdown level in my blood (CPK) has held for the last three weeks at 2400 (down from 4700 when I left the hospital Feb. 10), which allowed me to start easing off of my Prednizone. Continue to pray for strength in Greek studies, school reading, & therapy (for Chris); and strength in Rebecca’s balancing of all her responsibilities of job (she is a Consultant for a software company- something she is able to do from home), housework, meals, & independent study.

We thought it might be helpful in this update for you to hear from Rebecca’s perspective (this is part of an email written to her parents a few weeks ago) on the last months of our journey together:

“I'm beginning to wonder if I'll ever be bold enough to let my heart begin to process all that has passed in our lives these past months. It's the grace that is so overwhelming. What does one do with such a heap of pardons as we have received? We certainly can't be expected now to live as we would have before, and I feel a burden of obligation (as if I should not have already felt this toward Christ). Isn't this a strange reaction?

I married Christopher prepared, so I thought, for a husband with muscular dystrophy. . .prepared for a slow digression, for years of wheelchairs, ramps, and theological answers to suffering which we may possibly find ourselves writing books about someday (as if there is some plain answer, and as if there is a lack of those sort of books out there). My mind has been so set upon how we might live life with this challenge as fully and faithfully as possible. I came into the marriage with exuberance. I could hardly wait to face these challenges with my new husband. I knew our dedication to God, and our love for each other would assure joy (not happiness, perhaps, but the joy of His faithfulness certainly) in whatever circumstance.

However, life as a caretaker requires more character of a person than I once thought, character I was certain was in me, but all I have discovered in this is that none of that character is in me, and that the secret to serving where and how God desires for us to serve (which is in a manner patterned after Christ, of course) requires nothing less than utter dependency upon Christ. It is quite another thing to live dependency than to simply desire it, and I am convinced that the only thing that can possibly cause one to live in utter dependency upon Christ is to need it desperately, and that need (which everyone has) can only be realized through suffering, and suffering is a gift only God has the prerogative to bestow, or rather, as we see in Job, to allow to be bestowed. Suffering is really just the removal of what is valuable or needed to a person. We need air, food, clothing, shelter, health. These are physical needs. We need relationships that are healthy, not abusive. These are emotional needs etc. It seems the desire to fight to have my own needs met in all of this has been my most trying enemy in the quest to depend upon Christ to meet my needs, as well as my husband’s.

All that has been taken away from the two of us is Christopher's ability move, which has taken away his ability to do school or work or play as he would like. This has, in turn, taken away my freedom to do those things as well, and has added many physical tasks to my plate that would not have been required of me before. These circumstances have put us in the position to have no income at the moment.(Rebecca just started her job a few weeks ago.) This is all that has really happened. So much more could have been taken away. Besides that, our financial situation has been incredibly cushioned with over $6,000 just within the past two months given to us by our church family, and our unbelieving friends alike. This does not include the much larger support provided us by our families. In the last month, we received permission to use food stamps, and Medicaid. We also learned that there would be an end to this "suffering". I now begin to try to piece together how the temporary removal of my husband's health could rock our boat so severely. How little must I have trusted God before? What would our reaction be if we like Job, had our families been taken away, had our very friends blamed our situation upon our personal sin, and our spouse encouraged us to "curse God and die"?

As is, I have needed not only God, but the grace of His provisions in family and friends in order to praise Him as I do now. How I long to be like Job, to say as a result of hardship "I had heard of you by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees you", and like Paul in his suffering to say "I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content." To see that the integrity of our presumed character lies unchanged in the midst of the storm has been true in only one sense, and that is that each of us has not failed to go to our knees in our time of need. We have argued. We have seen the worst of one another. This seems hardly the case with Job, who said, "I hold fast my righteousness and will not let it go; my heart does not reproach me for days" in response to his friends’ accusations upon his character. Christopher and I are constantly confessing our sinful responses to God and to one another. How gracious is our Father in His forgiveness of us, and of His patience to mold our characters in such a determined manner as to allow us to learn in this suffering and to do it together. Job did later say of his former proclamations, "I have uttered what I did not understand, things too wonderful for me, which I did not know". When I speak of what God is doing here it is certainly speaking of "what I do not understand". It seems God has called me to be silent, to be one who learns, and, as God challenged Job, to "dress myself for action" so as to be prepared to answer when asked: “who is the One in control of all these things?”

So, here I am, only beginning to become comfortable in the midst of the terribly uncomfortable, only beginning to allow Christ alone to be my comfort. Then, everything changes. Things look like they're on the "up." But, I don't feel the certainty that is supposed to be attached to the word "diagnosis". My hope doesn't rest on what the doctor assures us will take place in my beloved husband. I praise God for this diagnosis, and the prognosis. I praise Him for the excitement of watching Christopher actually gain strength. My eyes behold nothing less than the awesome grace of God. Yet, if the situation were to change and be on the "down" again, we would not be out of this grace. God's love is certain whatever the circumstance. Perhaps it takes all of this to have happened to be able to say that in faith. It is a treasure to proclaim this together, Chris and I. We are a small choir. I could not have hoped for a greater treasure, not in many years of marriage, than to know God alongside my husband in this way.”

Much love & thankfulness,
Christopher & Rebecca

First 1.5 months: Most Unusual!

February 20, 2006
Dear Ones,
Greetings from the newest Knaebel household! This first month of marriage has certainly been the most eventful we could have imagined: overheating in a hot tub on the honeymoon, driving to a second wedding reception in MD, unpacking our new apartment in a week and a half, ER admittance followed by two weeks of hospitalization and tests, and now a week home with rehab already in progress! When did we have time to focus on our new marriage? With all the stresses and changes, it has been a pressure cooker of getting to know each other in one month better than many couples ever do in years. Through all the changes, He changeless still remains. We have been stretched to trust our Savior as He leads the path ahead: from suffering to glory.

I never imagined I’d get scared going to the hospital. All my life I have been perfectly healthy. But when I was diagnosed with Limb-Girdle Muscular Dystrophy in August and it began to speed up in its progression, I felt totally helpless and frightened. Watching your body fall apart and being able to do nothing about it is the moment when your faith is truly tested: do I really believe when it looks like things won’t end up painless and in a way I can know what to expect? I wrestled to trust God with the unknowns that lie ahead.

By the time we realized how quickly things were progressing, we couldn’t get a doctor’s appointment soon enough with a specialist qualified enough to be able to treat me. So we took the unanimous advice of three different family practice consultations: push the envelope by admitting yourself to the ER and make them see you. At this point, I could hardly walk, had been tripping and falling around the apartment, and couldn’t even get up out of a lift chair on my own. After 11 long hours and many student medical evaluations, they finally admitted us. For the next two weeks, I was too weak physically to sit up in bed, raise my arms or legs off the bed, or roll over. I was completely at the mercy of my caretakers. My dear wife stayed by my side the whole time, but for three nights that I forced her home to get better rest. Her faithful support mirrored to me the faithfulness of my Savior’s presence during this often dark hospital stay. I went in and out of depression, though I never knew it at the time. It was incredibly humbling to sit in and smell your own stench day in and day out. The tests were slow and time consuming.

The Electromyogram (EMG) and Nerve Conduction Studies were smooth and painless. Dr. Brown could see how the guy at Hershey had come to his conclusions about my characteristically “chiseled” muscles. But he disagreed with their conclusion. Because my nerves were so responsive, he almost immediately ruled out such diseases as ALS (Lou Gehrig’s) or other nerve related conditions which were on our minds because of the speed of progression and my half a dozen falls around the apartment over the last few weeks prior to the hospital. Rebecca and I said a prayer of thanksgiving before rejoining the rest of the family in the waiting room.

The Lord’s provisions continued to be evident every step we took. After trying our best to see the main Muscular Dystrophy (MD) doctor for days, they gave us an appointment with one of his colleagues, who Providentially was not only one of the top doctors in Philly for the last two years, but also who was the specialist in the area for the disease they now think I have. Go figure. And the phone calls, prayers, cards, and love we have been enfolded with continue to melt us in thanksgiving to God. We even had four crazy college pals drive all night to see us from Chicago over last weekend just to support us in this trial. God has truly been good to us.

As you have probably guessed, due to the medical hospitalization from Jan 30-Feb. 10 and the months of rehab ahead, (including having to learn how to walk again because of having just found out that over the last 9 months, my autoimmune system was attacking my muscles causing them to waste away) I am not going to be able to attend classes this semester. I'm trying to study Greek on my own and take one independent study if possible. Rebecca continues to be my full time caretaker while finishing a correspondence course, wedding thank yous, and the new responsibilities of being a wife so she is unable to work. We have been able to put back some money left over from wedding gifts for the next couple month’s rent and food bills. Our parents are going to continue supporting us as they are able. We are trusting the Lord to provide for our daily needs.

Right now I'm on oral steroids for 6 months to rebuild muscle. They also gave me an IV of Immuno Globulins for 5 days while I was in the hospital, a pooled collection of all known antibodies from 20,000 blood donors which are chemically liquefied (a $25,000 treatment) and flooded into my blood stream to speed up recovery time of my defective immune system. The tentative diagnosis is Dermatomyositis, an autoimmune disease that attacks the body's muscles as if they were an infection. It causes lots of inflammation and a slight purple/blue rash on the knuckles, knees, elbows, and cheeks which was the tip-off to the doctors of my condition. The good news is that it seems to be treatable, though they won't know for sure how my body is responding to treatment for at least 3-6 months. Hopefully at my follow-up appointment on March 13 they'll be able to definitely diagnose me from the Muscle Biopsy results that will be back by then. For now, long recovery-- possibly upwards of a year-- but they hope I'll be fully independent in daily tasks by July 4! Praise the Lord.

As you can imagine, Rebecca and I are hesitant to cling to what the doctors have told us. We don’t know anything for sure. This we do know: “God is our refuge and our strength, a very present help in trouble. Therefore, we will not fear” (Psalm 46:1-2a).
Hiding on to Christ our Rock in the midst of sinking sand,
Christopher and Rebecca Knaebel
P.S. For more wedding photos, visit our website: http://flickr.com/photos/chris_rebecca_knaebel/