It's not About Basketball, it's about Life.

It rained this week. All week. And it would have been nothing but beautiful had it been only rain and not an icey cold mix with a few falling ice chunks mixed in with it. I think the dreariness and the cold and darkness of it messed with people's emotions and mental and physical strength.

I actually pulled over on my way to church in a little park to cry. It was so unexpected and unusual - I just felt compelled to pull over and the tears came. It was still cloudy chilly on my way to church, but no longer raining. For some reason I felt like I was carrying the weight of the week and of my own and my friends' stresses and I had to release it before I could sit in church. Sooo, I cried and then dried my eyes and continued driving - and I made it on time.

I can't say I was super focused sitting there however. I wanted so badly for my Sunday to be a day completely dedicated to Heavenly Father. I'd love to sit outside under the now blue - finally - sky and read my scriptures and have a picnic. Instead I am at the library. Studying for tomorrow morning's exam. Today marks exactly one month left of classroom learning for me - and that month seems so daunting. But to make it through and reclaim my Sundays simultaneously makes it seem so incredible. I really just want my Sundays back.

I played basketball while on a short study break earlier this week. It was day 4 of rain and I was going crazy, so I went to the gym, grabbed a ball and started shooting around, really with no rhyme or reason. And I started thinking about my high school basketball days and my coaches. I distinctly remember two of them. One - a Catholic priest and mentor - used to tell me, "It's not about basketball, it's about life." He'd say this on multiple occaisions while trying to get me to believe in myself and to trust in my abilities and capabilities. He'd say it while helping me to overcome my pitiful 58% free throw average and at the end of three hour practices when in my frustration I'd miss every shot I attempted. He was all about fundamentals. He'd break the game down to it's roots and tell us that unless we knew the basics we couldn't know greatness. The game was black and white for him. You played right or you didn't - and the philosophy behind your belief in your abiliity to do so made all of the difference. He MADE ME a basketball player.

And then my junior year a new guy came along. He was young - a football coach. Never coached a girls' anything team in his life and certainly not basketball. He didn't know the fundamentals. He didn't give us an offense - he turned us into something of a streetballer team. But he knew about heart and attitude and unity. He MADE US - as a team that is. And that's how we made it to the state tournament my senior year.

And while I was thinking about this, a Christian song came on my pandora station and that made me relate my thoughts to life and to the Gospel - just as my Catholic priest coach told me I should do. And I thought how we can know the basics. How we need to know the basics and to believe in them and in our abilities to live and to be noble sons and daughters of God. But how alone that's not enough. If we don't practice the basics in love for our fellow men, then knowing the basics won't get us anywhere, and certainly not to the state tournament of eternal salvation. Christ teaches us the basics, but until we take them to heart and use them to become one with those around us and most importantly with Him and Heavenly Father, we can't become anything other than fragments of useful knowledge with so much unused potential. We have so much potential.

So maybe today on my way to church I felt like I was fragmented. Sure I knew all the answers, but I'd seen a lot of disunity and struggling this week - I'd contributed to it as well. And maybe it took those tears after the rain to remind me that Christ has MADE ME - and all of us - so that we can become that team united in heart and unity and attitude capable of so much greatness if we only allow and trust him to be our Coach.