Swimming, Car Back & New Perspective on Life

Today I went to the gym for the first time in 10 months. It was so encouraging to be able to walk through the locker room all by myself once again. What I mean is that today Rebecca took me swimming. It was so nice to stretch out and get my muscles moving again. My wife is quite the water princess and gave me a few personal training tips as I exercised. It was grand. Most of all, it provided me a new way to encourage my wife-- she has been longing for this day for so long! Now we can go to the gym together. Life's rests & wrestlings are so much better shared! I know this is a small picture of what the Lord meant when He said "the two shall become one flesh."

I also know this is a reflection of a Christian's relationship with God. Yeah, there certainly are lots of things we must wrestle with in this life (and I have gotten to know so many more of them through the trials of this disease over this last year and a half); but we wrestle not alone-- yeah, our Lord says to us, "Come unto Me ye weary, and I will give you rest." Because we are all affected by sin's curse, so many of our natural inclinations are suicidal! So we must die to ourselves in order to really live as children of God. It IS a legitimate struggle; but, praise God, we do not do it alone! Our Lord Jesus gives to us "light" burdens and an "easy" yoke (Matt. 11:28-30) because He is WITH us.

Our Lord has also given to us each other. As we strive together (wrestle) we know joy and refreshment from our family in God (resting). We are called as Christians to share in each other's burdens. And as we "bear one another's burdens . . . Let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up" (Galatians 6:2 & 9).
This week I have received another small piece of that reward: Rebecca and I got our Accord (car) back from my family. They had lent us their mini van because it was easier for me to get in and out of . . . Praise Him for getting better! I can now bend enough to use my smaller, cooler, and lower-to-the-ground car.

And now, the words of a hymn that I've been thinking about today. The Jim Elliot and four other missionaries were speared to death in the jungles of Ecuador while sharing Jesus with an unreached tribe of people (their story was recently in the theaters as the film End of the Spear, though Elizabeth Elliot's book Through Gates of Splendor was better), departed to meet with the tribe that morning with the words of the hymn "We trust in You, Our Shield and our Defender" on their lips:

1. We trust in You, our Shield and our Defender; We do not fight alone against the foe:
Strong in Your strength, safe in Your keeping tender, We trust in You, and in Your name we go.

2. We trust in You, O Captain of salvation! in Your dear name, all other names above: Jesus our Righteousness, our sure foundation, our Prince of glory and our King of love.

3. We go in faith, our own great weakness feeling, and needing more each day Your grace to know; yet from our hearts a song of triumph pealing, "We trust in You, and in Your name we go."

4. We trust in You, our Shield and our Defender: Yours is the battle-- Yours shall be the praise! When passing through the gates of dazzling splendor, victors, we rest in You through endless days.

His Power in our weakness

I went to see Dr. Brown, my wonderful neurologist on Friday, the 13th of October and had a few things about my disease clarified. First, supposedly I'm in between childhood and adulthood versions of dermatomyositis. Usually the type that occurs with 13 year old boys is very responsive to Prednisone (I was not, and was all the way up to 80mg/day before we discovered this) and there is not often a need to use IVIg for treatment (It seems to really be the main thing helping me though). It also is generally "cured"-- meaning that once the affects are reversed, the disease doesn't usually return later in life.

In the adult version of the disease, typically it doesn't affect someone until they're in their 50s. This form can be treated and goes away for a time (remission). But stress and other factors can cause it to return, and there is need for further medication and monitoring.
Since I fall in the middle of these two versions of an already very specific disease (only affecting about 20,000 people in the US), there is virtually no precedent and no way to know how the process will work. For now, I continue on the IVIg and am working toward getting my physical strength/stamina back.

I never realized how exhausting this process of rebuilding muscle would be. It seems that I am always tired. So I've decided that quality is better than quantity. In light of that, I am walking without my walker to classes and church now as well as maintaining two days a week of physical therapy. I've been getting my own meals these days and even helping Rebecca around the house with dishes and laundry. Rebecca and I are even doing a weekly date night where we do something fun and take a break from all our responsibilities to rest.

Second, now I'm down to 30mg/day of Prednisone and in another month will be only on 20mg/day. This is very exciting, as the acne, bloated feeling from water retention, and general muscular weakness from long-term dosage that are side-affects of the steroids will be reduced!

Third, I won't really know how much muscle I'll get back for another year. This was kind of discouraging to me because I never imagined this would be so slow of a recovery! If everything goes the worst, Dr. Brown says that I'll be off of all medicine in five years (though I have no way of knowing whether the disease will return again later in life and require more treatment). More than likely I'll be off of all medicine in two years. Right now the plan is to take it one step at a time and trust the Lord while continuing to do good.

Forth, I'm discovering that admitting weakness is one of the most difficult things in the world for me to do. These last ten months of battling against my own body have given me many occasions to have to learn how to ask for help. But I have never once liked being forced to do this. It goes against every fiber of my prideful being. It also is not something that a pastor's son should ever have to do, right (or a future leader or a husband and someday a father)? No, it has been the most difficult thing I've ever had to do this last week to go before the session (elders/leaders) of our church and confess my sins and ask for prayer. I realized that the power of prayer and community was necessary to break free of my bondage to sin as well as to fight the spiritual warfare, depression, and trials that Rebecca and I have been flooded with these last ten months of our lives and marriage. Praise Him for second chances, growth, love, forgiveness, and that there's one thing I can bank my life on: someday I'll be in glory with my Lord Jesus!

Today I realized that the most exciting thing about the gospel to me is that a guilty sinner like me is free from the bondage of having to be perfect. I’m broken, I’m a mess, but I’m going to glory! Praise Him for such grace.

Hebrew, PT, Rebecca's new job, etc.

Dear Friends,

SCHOOL
I've decided to drop both of my other classes except Hebrew. I was barely keeping up with Hebrew amid the weekly ups and downs of sometimes pushing myself too much in Physical Therapy and then taking days to recover, etc. Also, I've been in and out of depression from being overwhelmed by all I had on my plate. It seems escape is always easier than reality, but then again Christ never said that it would be easy to die to oneself daily. I took care of the paperwork at school on Friday. It was very difficult for me to admit being too weak to handle what I had planned on doing this semester. It seems in yet another way that the Lord is seeking to teach me humility . . .

Due to my physical limitations and the variables on how much energy I have from day to day and week to week, I just received permission on Fridays to have some flexibility in attending any of the three discussion group sections in Hebrew. I'm normally in the 9:30am one, but somedays I cannot get out of bed; if I've had a tough week physically, sometimes I am unable to complete all my homework and get ready for our weekly vocabulary quiz. It seems this will be most helpful for me with all the variables from week to week.


FAMILY
In all of this barely keeping up with Hebrew, Physical Therapy, my relationship with God, spending time with my wife, and getting my needed rest . . . We've enjoyed having more guests: Chris' Uncle Stephen (an Orthodox Presbyterian minister from Lansing, MI) and Aunt Norma visited with us during the first week of October. Though Rebecca and I were very busy with school while they were here, our piano got a beautiful tune and our broken dining room chair a gluing -- because of my Uncle's generous heart.

Rebecca's father will now being paying for our monthly internet, with this being the last week of her working for Xelex Digital. We are grateful to him for this gracious contribution.

Chris' father has given us a check he'd been re-imbursed for from the Seminary (due to a retro-active scholarship Christopher received), which COMPLETELY PAYS FOR CHRIS' NEW LAPTOP. Praise the Lord for his provision! Though I had many kind offers of free computers (both to borrow & have) from many of you, I needed a laptop and found such a good deal on Dell.com that I went ahead a got one last month.

HEALTH
Chris continues PT (Physical Therapy) twice a week. He sees Dr. Brown (his neurologist) on Friday @ 8:30am, then travels to the dentist to get two of his wisdom teeth out. He should get another IVIg in the next week (working out a scheduling conflict with the nurse). In the last week, he's begun walking to classes & church without his walker. Though this drains him physically, it is much more satisfying to do a better job at less than continue at full speed ahead yet barely getting by.

Pray for Rebecca this week: she's training as a waitress at Macaroni Grill as well as doing her last week at Xelex. This is on top of her house work and online Physical Geography (which has proven very difficult).

~Chris & Rebecca Knaebel
P.S. Check out our updated pictures:
http://flickr.com/photos/chris_rebecca_knaebel/

Dropping a Class

It seems that I have bitten off more than I can chew. I've been so tired lately that I've stopped doing physical therapy each night and only do it twice a week when I work with my therapist. Since I don't know how long I will have the ability to gain back muscle strength (at anytime I could approach the two year mark of having the disease, after which there is permanent muscle damage), why am I not keeping the main thing the main thing? I've barely been keeping up in Hebrew and have been depressed because of being overwhelmed with all these changes and added responsibilities to my weak frame. Now that I've completed three weeks of courses at Westminster, I have reached a conclusion: drop a class, Chris.
So I've decided to check out of Doctrine of the Church for this semester (I'll pick it up again in future studies at WTS, Lord willing). My line of reasoning is this: a full load for a physically normal person is 12 credit hours. I do not believe that I have the physical strength and stamina of even half a normal person, so why am I trying to take more than half a normal person's credit hours? I was taking 8 hours but now see this as foolish. I'll drop down to six credits, trying to maintain Hebrew (3hrs) and New Testament Introduction (3hrs). This was a tough decision because I always want to do/think in my head I can do-- more than is actually physically possible.
Lord, grant me the patience to continue to wait on your timing in the process of getting better and resuming Your call upon my life. While I know this last year + of my life has not been an interruption in what You're doing in and through me, I've grown hard to Your Spirit because I've pushed my timing. Strengthen me now to wait on You and thereby find my strength. You are my only hope in all of this Lord. Amen.