Giving Self=Giving Life: Ben Freiburger

God Gold of the day

‘By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers. But if anyone has the world’s goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God’s love abide in him? Little children, let us not love in word or talk but in deed and in truth. ‘

1 John 3:16-18 

Wanted to spend some time today and give a special shout out to a brother-in-law of mine that I’m super thankful to have in my life, Ben Freiburger. Ben’s your regular college kid, wanted to put things in perspective before I share with you why I felt the need to share why I’m writing about him today. Usually, kids that age and to be honest, I would say all of us on any given day wouldn’t take the time to serve others like Mr. Ben has done recently. Below are pictures and write up from none other than Ben himself, so you can hear from his words how awesome of a moment God aligned to serve someone that Ben didn’t even know. It’s easy to say we’d be willing to lay down our lives for our brothers, but to do it, well I’d be willing to say that something we all struggle with. It can be easy to get so caught up in our busy lives and at the end of the day get caught up in a what serves me mentality.

Today, I wanted to share with you Ben’s story to hopefully encourage you and challenge you to lift your perspective on serving others, and being so focused on others that any opportunity that arises in our lives to encourage or add value to someone else, we don’t think twice but we just faithfully do it. Jesus paved the road to this example of what it looks like to literally sacrifice our own lives for the betterment of another as she laid down His life until death to give us all a chance at life. As you read about Ben’s example here, how awesome is it to see such a Christ-like example played out. Ben, not having anything forcing him to serve in this way, was given an opportunity to serve, had every excuse not to. Traveling time and expenses, sitting through a 6 hour procedure at the hospital and to think he didn’t even know the guy he was serving. He still sacrificed himself and literally gave up part of his life, the life running red through his veins to give another a chance at life. Wow….that’s a pretty powerful display of love, a love that goes far beyond anything we could comprehend or manifest. A love that comes from Jesus and a love Jesus calls us to give to others in our lives.

Your service could look different from this of what Ben did, it could simply be speaking an encouraging word to someone, or so many other things. The big thing that I want you to see, what I’ve seen that has impacted me in huge ways, is the sacrifice of self that must take place in living out this loving service to others. It’s not about us, it’s about Him, and serving others in a way that they see Him! It’s bigger than me and you!

Hope you enjoy these words from Ben and I also hope this can raise some awareness to the opportunities to give through donating pieces of ourselves for others going through sickness and disease. If you’re interested in doing so, there will be a link below that will lead you to how to do that!

“2 years ago I signed up for the Be The Match registry on campus while walking with a friend in Delta Zeta. Their sorority leads the charges on campus every year to get students to sign up. The process took 2 mins and I think I was mainly motivated because they were offering candy for anyone who signed up. I never anticipated it was a decision that would ACTUALLY lead to something like this…..

A couple months ago I was contacted as a potential match for a man suffering with Acute Myeloid Leukemia (AML) in need of a bone marrow transplant. After a few more screenings it was confirmed I was the best match for this patient.

After weeks of anticipation and prayer, this morning I was able to successfully donate my peripheral blood stem cells (PBSC) which will hopefully be injected successfully to my patient tomorrow. Hopefully ending his fight with this vicious, life threatening disease.

I am thankful for all the positive feedback and encouragement people have sent my way but I feel slightly weird receiving a lot of it. I don’t feel like I personally did anything “special”. Mainly because almost anyone who gets asked to help save someone’s life would do it without question, I was just fortunate enough to be selected.

So if you’ve made it this far, please consider signing up for the Be The Match registry. It’s so easy to register, all you have to do is send in a cheek swab and contact information and they will let you know if you are a potential match. They take care of all costs, and coordinate all your appointments. All they ask is that you give up your time. A pretty easy sacrifice if you consider the good it can do. If it happened to me why couldn’t it happen to you? Make a quick decision now that could impact someone‘s life FOREVER.

Please sign up with your friends and family this Christmas season and potentially give the best gift you can give. LIFE.”

[LINK] https://join.bethematch.org/s/landing?language=en_US&gclid=Cj0KCQiA_rfvBRCPARIsANlV66PeiCO5k_eRWuk4UOGe6upaRpHkVOuYBv4dnSqFt4la8n5F3HYMxKsaAl_wEALw_wcB&ref=marrow17&utm_campaign=bone_marrow_match&utm_medium=cpc&utm_source=google&utm_content=bonemarrowmatch