Brady Johnson has been one of my closest friends for a long time, and this was one of the most meaningful conversations I've had on the show. He beat cancer, and I watched that journey unfold and cried more than I'd like to admit. Here, he tells it himself.

We start where his love of soccer started. Brady grew up in St. George, where there was no competitive soccer for boys. His mom, a ballroom dancer with zero soccer experience, decided her boys were going to play. She teamed up with a German friend of his dad's and started one, and Brady's team became the first from southern Utah to compete at State Cup. He loved the games and dreaded the practices, got named captain at 14 over 17- and 18-year-olds, and quit basketball his senior year to audition for the school musical. He landed a lead and told almost no one. Yes, he was Troy Bolton in real life.

Then SVU, a starting spot, two assists and a goal in his first game, and a high ankle sprain at the first practice the next day. A mission in Boston, where he was called to learn Cambodian in an area with very few Cambodian speakers. He studied the language every day anyway, and a year after he got home he helped teach a Cambodian woman over Skype who was baptized. He still says his personal prayers in Cambodian.

From there, a career that had him moving all over the map, an MBA, two daughters, and a move to Canada that went wrong almost immediately. Then the diagnosis. He talks about how he and Emily decided to tell their girls the truth and keep it positive, the wall of sticky notes where the family wrote down a blessing every day, and the doctor who happened to be a ten-minute drive away and had worked on his exact cancer. He also talks about how scared he was the week before the results.

His advice: put first things first, there's no such thing as perfect balance, and when you're home, be present. Looking back, you can see God's hand.

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