The Comeback That Started with Surrender

In the 2018 Masters Tournament, Tiger Woods wasn't even supposed to be there. Four back surgeries, years of chronic pain, a public unraveling that left him ranked 1,199th in the world. During his lowest point, he told friends he wasn't sure he would ever walk without pain again, let alone swing a golf club. But healing didn't begin with a comeback plan. It began with surrender — submitting to a spinal fusion procedure that his doctors called a last resort. He had to stop fighting on his own terms and trust the hands of someone who could do what he could not do for himself.

A year later, Woods returned to the Tour. And in April 2019, he pulled on the green jacket at Augusta National for the first time in fourteen years. He wept on the eighteenth green, embracing his children the way his father had once embraced him.

Here is what Tiger's journey teaches us about the healing hand of the Almighty: restoration rarely begins with strength. It begins with surrender. The Psalmist knew this when he wrote, "He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds" (Psalm 147:3). Notice — God binds up. We don't bind ourselves. We come broken, we come limping, we come ranked 1,199th in life, and the Great Physician does what we cannot do alone.

Healing starts the moment we stop pretending we can fix ourselves and fall into the hands of Jehovah Rapha — the God Who Heals.