Just Drop the Ball

So I went golfing today with a few friends from church and I ended up hitting a guy with one of my shots. I have to say, nothing makes you feel like a horse's pa-toot like hitting someone accidentally with a golf shot.

We were on the fourth hole, a severe dog-leg to the right. I've never played the course, but my friend tells me if I hit it over the trees to the right I can make it on the green. I have no idea anyone is in front of us, so I hit it over the trees and it was probably the best shot I hit all day.

As we came up over the hill I see the guys on the green and I'm thinking, "oh no, I hope I didn't..." About that time a large man (I'd say about 6'4'', 275, bald, glaring, angry, etc.) came marching towards us.

"Who's hitting a green ball?!?!" he shouted as he marched towards us, shaking his fist with my ball clenched tightly in it. Now, I was playing a Sponge Bob Square Pants ball that I'd gotten last Christmas, which was actually yellow, but I didn't have the audacity to correct him.

"I am," I said weakly as I raised my hand like a fourth grader admitting he had just tried to put a tack on the teacher's chair. Well, maybe more like a fourth grader who did put a tack on the teacher's chair and the teacher sat on the tack and then got REALLY angry.

I'll spare you the details, but he commenced to curse me up and down and degrade my knowledge of the courtesies of golf (yelling "fore," seeing if anyone's in front of you, etc.) using quite colorful language by stringing together variations of four letter words I've never heard before.

I apologized meekly. He mumbled more curses and stomped away, clenching my Sponge Bob ball. Now, I had to have driven the green (on a par 4, no less!) to hit the guy and would've had a chance at an eagle putt, but, again, I didn't have the audacity to ask the man for my ball back.

What stuck with me from this experience, other than his colorful display, was that this guy clenched my ball and stomped away, doomed to hate the memory of me for the rest of his days. Poor Sponge Bob represented the bitterness he harbored toward me, and he resolved to hold on to that bitterness.

I struggled to find significance in all of this and so I'll take this moment to defend the cause of the horses' pa-toots out there: If someone did something or said something to hurt you, forgive them. Don't harbor malice in your soul.

I'm not asking you to deny that it hurt (even a Sponge Bob Square Pants ball hurts when it is traveling at over 100 mph). I'm not even asking you to deny that you were justified in your bitterness (I should've yelled fore, checked to see if anyone was in front of us, etc). Here's what it comes down to: whoever has hurt you feels like a horse's pa-toot-- but they'll get over it. You'll only hurt yourself in the long run if you don't forgive them.

Besides, you don't want to have to carry around a neon yellow Sponge Bob Square Pants golf ball of bitterness for the rest of your life, do you (that smug little grin of his, mocking you)? Just drop the ball. Forgive them. Give them a chance at an eagle putt. Just drop the ball.
APK