Now a Motion Picture
Chasing Grace started as a book I wrote without knowing what it would become. It became a film. Both still exist, both still find people exactly when they need them.
It's a perfect afternoon in small-town America as Pastor Jonathan and his family celebrate Grace's ninth birthday. But when an unimaginable accident happens, it threatens to tear the family apart — while testing their faith.
With time, but not without pain, an incredible transformation begins. The Mission Grove community comes to realize that bad things do happen to good people — but time can eventually heal all wounds.
Two years to write a book most people will read in an afternoon. Another year learning the unglamorous mechanics of self-publishing well enough to actually sell it. Then six years where the story simply waited.
When it was finally time to make the film, I raised the $240,000 budget almost entirely on my own. From there, the timeline compressed into about a year — adapting the novel into a screenplay, casting it, scouting locations as my own producer, then directing the film and starring in it, simultaneously, because that's what an independent budget actually requires of you.
Chasing Grace isn't a true story. But everything it cost to make it real, was.