Stronger for It

(Originally written October 2023)

45 seconds I stood there in silence. A room full of people staring up at me, waiting for what I was going to say next. The only problem was – I had no idea. I could feel my heart begin to race and my mind searching but I was arriving nowhere. I’d heard of people say they’ve had experiences where they’ve lost their train of thought in the middle of a speech before, but I’d never experienced it myself – until now.

I’ve been doing a lot of golfing this year and my driver has been spot on. It’s amazing how much easier the game is when you get off the tee well. Then one afternoon, seemingly out of the blue, I hit a total hook that spun off about 80 yards to the left. Then it happened again and again. What had previously been a staple to my steady improvement on the course suddenly turned into a liability.

This happened over the course of three or four rounds. So, like any aspiring PGA Tour professional, I watched some YouTube videos. I realized how I was compensating with my hands was actually the exact opposite of what I was supposed to be doing to fix my problem and there was one drill in particular that made sense to me. I tried it out on the course a few days later and just like that the problem was fixed.

I began to realize this frustrating problem I had just gone through actually made me a better golfer. I learned something I didn’t think I’d need to know – how to solve a hook. Yes, in a perfect world I’d drive the ball perfectly every time, but that’s not realistic. Therefore, making mistakes and learning fixes to those mistakes is actually a key piece to becoming better.

Staring down at my notes, I focused on slowing my breathing. I found a point I could build upon and with one deep breath in and exhale out I began back into my speech. I crawled out of the hole I found myself in, eventually had the room participating and went on as if the awkward 40 seconds of silence had never happened.

As uncomfortable as that experience was, I walked back to my truck with a sense of excitement. I just learned how to navigate a colossal brain-fart in front of a group of 50 people. I’d never had to do that before, and I hope I won’t need to like that again, but if I do I have experience under my belt as to how to handle the situation.

I was reading through Titus this morning and in chapter three Paul tells Titus to “be ready for every good work” (3:1b). Paul talks about how they were once far off from the Lord and living as such, then when they came to believe in Jesus, they became near to Him and they are now charged to live differently. Paul mentions, “I want you to insist on these things, so that those who have believed in God may be careful to devore themselves to good works” (3:8).

As believers, the more we practice being like Jesus the more we learn. This means that we will make mistakes along the way. The point I want to land on here is that those mistakes do not define us, they are a tool that can be used to learn a new lesson had we not made that mistake to begin with. This is a beautiful way that God uses the hard and uncomfortable things to strengthen and mature us.

Now, I could have run out of that room. And a part of me considered it, but I wouldn’t have learned my lesson or come out of the other end stronger than before had I done that. Where’s an area that you’ve struggled in or made a mistake? I want to encourage you to go back to that place in your mind and prayerfully consider, “how could I have done that better? What’s a lesson to be learned here that can redeem this moment?” God is faithful to continue the work in you and me that He has started. And a big part of His restoring nature is using broken moments to teach us and prepare us for what’s to come and making us stronger for it.