College basketball is now into high gear.  The tournament to determine the national champion begins this week for men and women.  I would like to see some numbers on how much money will be wagered over the next three weeks.  None of that will be from my financial resources so it is only a curious question.  This week is the time when companies count a large increase in workers calling in sick to the office.  More than a few employees will be taking time off from work to watch all of the games coming up.  It is true that the Super Bowl is the largest one time sporting event of the year.  But this tournament will involve three weeks of activity even if away from the office.

I can remember watching the games during those growing up years.  How it all happened was beyond me but I did watch.  I still remember the years when UCLA just dominated college basketball.  Those teams won seven championships in a row.  No one will ever come close to duplicating that feat.  But my favorite team will always be the 1983 champions from North Carolina State.  Jim Valvano was the coach of that team that overcame every obstacle to winning it all.  It was heart breaking a few years later to learn he would suffer from cancer.  Maybe suffer is the wrong word choice.  He fought this horrific disease for all it was worth.  His appearances while ill would help start a foundation to donate money to research.  Over $100 million is now in use in various cancer research outlets just because of one man's courage.  Perhaps people that you and I know received benefits from his effort.

His story as well as the accounts of his championship team still resonate with me even thirty years after they won.  Being a cancer survivor does that to me.  We are a fraternity of people from all ages and gender.  Some do not win their fight.  Some of us got to see the other side of this disease with a good prognosis.  No one escapes without scars from being engaged in this conflict.  It will soon be three years for me since my initial diagnosis.  We are a little over two years since getting a good report.  Every so often I remember that my label is one of a cancer survivor.  There are lessons gained from that journey that will stay with me until the end.  Some of them came from Jim Valvano even before my experience.  Others would become my own as we all take our unique journey.

There is so much of this world that simply does not matter to me as perhaps it once did.  Time has a way of putting it all in perspective.  You discover just how much every single day counts.  We do not get an interim life while putting real life on hold.  This also reminds you that few things are really small once you uncover purpose or mission.  You may also learn not everyone enjoys your new found vision for living.  Some who are driven by desires, pain or even a calendar resist your freedom.  They just cannot understand why we do not share their urgency over the trivial.  When you walk with God through a searing fire you also find a new reason for faith.  God becomes someone who does more than keep bad things from happening.  He becomes very real in your longing for more.  Eternity is more than a word you read about.  You realize just how amazing this life can be as God's promise to take you home becomes concrete.  You appreciate not just life now but life for all of space and time.

Cancer tried to rob me of this body as it took the physical health of Jim Valvano.  But it can never touch who we are at the core.  That alone belongs to God.

Bro. Trey