Walking the Final Fairway

In February 1949, golfer Ben Hogan nearly died when his car collided head-on with a Greyhound bus on a foggy Texas highway. He shattered his pelvis, fractured his collarbone, and broke his ankle. Doctors told his wife Valerie he might never walk again.

Sixteen months later, Hogan stood on the final fairway at Merion Golf Club in the 1950 U.S. Open. He had walked thirty-six holes that day on legs wrapped in bandages, each step a negotiation with pain. But he struck a one-iron approach shot to the eighteenth green that became one of the most famous shots in golf history — and went on to win the championship in a playoff the next day.

Hogan didn't win because the pain was gone. He won because he refused to let the pain have the final word.

Healing works the same way in the life of faith. We come to God with our fractures — broken relationships, shattered trust, grief that wraps itself around our bones — and we want Him to make us as if the injury never happened. But the healing the Almighty offers is often more like Hogan's comeback than a magic eraser. He doesn't always remove the limp. He gives us the strength to walk the fairway anyway.

As the prophet Isaiah wrote, "He gives strength to the weary and increases the power of the weak." God's healing doesn't mean you won't feel the pain. It means the pain won't finish your story.