Subscription Lists

Golfers are the masters of optimism. They seem willing to tough it out depite the weather. To prove that I need only to go back a couple of days to Wednesday. My day at The UPS Store ended at 1:00 and I was scheduled to meet my good friend Don Clark at the Longview Golf Course outside Georgetown for a round of golf. It was 64 in Lexington as I left the store and headed north to Georgetown. When I got to the West side of Georgetown there was a sign telling me that 460 West was closed a mile ahead. But that posed no problem. I simply turned North on 227 to Galloway Road and still arrived in time to the golf course.

The temperature had fallen to 55 degrees in Scott County and the wind was picking up. Still fairly decent golf weather for March in Kentucky. Don was already in the clubhouse checking in so we paid and loaded up and headed to the first tee. While we waited to tee off Don and I both noticed it seemed to be getting a bit cooler. No worry. We were both dressed warmly enough. The front nine was fun with both of us hitting some good shots and some bad shots. But it just kept getting colder and the wind kept getting a bit more brisk. I grabbed a Fast Break candy bar at the turn and we headed to the back.

On the back nine we joined up with a couple of men, one of which Don knew. After introductions we teed off. The temperature just kept dropping and the wind kept getting colder. The predicted cold front was coming through. By the sixteenth hole the wind was pretty steady at about twenty-five miles an hour. My right hand was getting stiff from the cold and making it hard to hold the club. By the time we finished the round the wind was icey and so were we. We had stuck it out as true golfers do. Leaving the golf course I noticed the temperature had dropped to 45. That explained a lot.

Many people probably did not play that day because of the wind and the cold. There were those of us who bore it and played and actually enjoyed the round. Somehow I managed a 77 in all the cold. Life is a lot like that. People tend to shy away from adverse situations. They won't go to funeral homes or nursing homes because they don't enjoy them. They won't go to a grieving friend's side because it makes them uncomfortable. Others forge right on ahead because they have learned something. They have learned that the true joy of living is in enduring the difficult times to truly enjoy the good times when they finally arrive.

"We are hard pressed on every side, yet not crushed; we are perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our body." 2 Corinthians 4:8-10 Being willing to take on some of the difficult things that remove us from our comfort zone is what makes us more like Jesus. Jesus never hid from anything. Neither should we. The end of our endurance through the tough things of life is the joy of life itself and the ultimate reward of the glory of God in heaven. Time to tough it out.

"Word from Scotland" from Sandy Shaw

Experience and Understand the Significance of Pentecost