Four days of golf.

Need I say more?

I played the best I ever have...and the worst. The first round nearly every drive was something to smile over. The second round, I spent a par 5 in the rough from tee to green in far more shots than I would care to admit. The first round, I made par for the first time and had quite a few bogeys instead of triples. For me, that's good! The second round is a score not worthy of recording! Such is the lure of this game. The sweet with the sour.

Walking the grounds at the President's Cup was wonderful. Friday's sweltering was made up for in Sunday's cool temperatures. I was literally spitting distance at times from the game's greats. Three of the first four players at 12 on Sunday made eagle, on a day when the wind was blowing and storms threatening. Not the day to go for the green on a water hole. No one told the players that.

Four days of golf.

I am tired. Anyone who knows me would understand that walking about all day for four days in a row would leave me quite tired. Playing two rounds myself was even more exhausting (I think I shall blame the poor second showing on fatigue).

But I suspect that I am more tired because I have come to a conclusion that wearies the soul.

I learned a lesson when I was little. Before I could speak with much understanding, I learned to shut up, be still, and wait until it is over. My uncle taught me that lesson again and again. He was not the only one.

Although it is over 35 years later, when push comes to shove, something within me automatically takes over...and I shut up, remain still, and wait until it is over.

Counseling, prayer, victory, peace. All have come. And yet that lesson remains so deep within me that it is the core of who I am when predators cross my path. I really cannot understand why it would surprise me to find it so again.

Truly, I am tired of digging at the roots of that lesson. They run too deep and have wrapped themselves around my being so completely that there is no defeating them.

What is left then? Embracing that lesson? Can I do so without drowning?

Whatever else I am, I am not a bully. I do not seek my own interests to the detriment of the company for which I work. I do not yell or say cruel things to my co-workers. I do not try to work around the wishes and directives of my boss. I do not undermine her authority.

I watch others, who do not know my lesson, who seemingly walk not as do I, bully, yell, practice deceit, and walk in selfishness. By comparison, the path I am choosing is not so dark.

Truth has been so very precious to me. I cling to it. I find peace in it. To know that Christ died for me. To know the price of the cross was paid because He loves us, loves me. To know that love is nothing of what I learned as a child, but what I learned from those who walk His path. To know that for eternity, nothing that touches me now will remain.

Perhaps it is that I should focus on the lessons He has chosen for me now. Patience and maturity in difficult circumstances. Faith in poor health. Joy in chirping birds and a dog who has never failed to brighten my life. Love in a friend who sees not as the world sees but as God sees. Grace in a boss who, though she is working at her own lessons, walks in quiet beauty in the face of tremendous stress and a seemingly never ending stream of needs and troubles to be addressed and assuaged. The power of Scripture. The solace of song.