Greatly, Deeply

A doctor's unsettling phone call in May, 2007, plunged an ordinary man named Ben Morrell into an extraordinary journey. Each step of his all-out battle with a rare cancer became an opportunity to wrestle through fundamental questions of suffering, purpose, and a story greater than our own. Ben didn't hide or settle for easy answers. Instead, he invited us into each raw, unflinching moment through hundreds of blog posts tinged with his razor-sharp humor. Maybe I am going through this for you as much as I am for me, he wrote. Maybe my struggles, pain, and suffering serve to encourage you, lift you up, or make you think about something you hadn't thought about before. Amid the fog of chemotherapy sessions and derailed dreams, Ben found purpose, even hope, that spanned far beyond days confined to bed. There are a hundred things that can happen to steer us in a new direction, he wrote. BUT, all of them are going to be something YOU never planned. To follow Jesus, really and honestly, IS salvation. To follow Christ on this Earth IS death to your own plans. Ben believed in a God bigger than grim statistics. Bigger than his plans. Bigger than a disease. Bigger than this life.