Define your writing style:
I do my best to encourage others and make everything that I say be beneficial and purposeful. Like a sunflower, (which are my favorite flowers), I try to be radiant by being positive and encouraging. I wish it was easier for me to be effortlessly witty but I do appreciate how I’m more naturally inclined to be genuine and vulnerable with my words.
What are the topics you like to read and write about?
In conversation, I’m not much of a talker actually, I’d much rather prefer to listen to what others have to share on their minds. I also really enjoy reading John Piper’s “Desiring God” blog and Relevant Magazine. In addition to reading about the stories of Christians and their struggles and triumphs, I like to journal about my own musings and God’s work in my journey.
Write about a specific moment where you “grew up”. Set the scene and tell a story.
I’m drenched in sweat from the fierce July sun that beat down relentlessly on the city of Ashland, Nebraska. My heart full of anxiety, and my head was full of voices that I couldn’t shake. I was standing over this four feet downhill putt that slightly broke from right to left, and it meant it all. This meant everything.
Moments before, I had left a 30 foot putt short and then smashed the remaining 10 footer 4 feet beyond the hole for a tricky putt to save for bogey and force a playoff. I couldn’t believe that I was even in this situation to begin with! I was playing so well but then one mistake lead to another and before long, I had given up my lead and now the odds were against me winning.
I stepped up to it, took my practice strokes and did my best to focus in the midst of this mess of my mind. I dared to glimpse up at my mom, and I saw her hunched, clearly trying very hard to hide her nervousness for me. I was wincing, both physically and mentally at this burden ahead. This could be the difference between getting heavily recruited and barely recruited at all by top schools I aspired to go to. Winning would’ve justified every sacrifice, every hurt, every struggle, and every failure. Couldn’t this just go in? Just for once? If this doesn’t, I’m not nearly as attractive to coaches and once again I’ve failed at an opportunity that’s just calling, waiting for me to take it. I knew my self-worth and golf achievements have become so intertwined but I couldn’t face my own pride and reach myself deep enough to understand that I am not my golf score. After a while of enduring, the two blur into one seamlessly.
Too many heavy thoughts, too many intense emotions, too much of the past was creeping into my mind as I stood over this little ball. There was too much weight riding on this putt that was about to be struck. I knew I was stuck in a state of defeat before I even hit it, but still wished it into the hole as it rolled past with no chance of going in. I did it. I missed. I failed.
I tapped the one foot putt in and shook hands with my playing competitors and tried to keep it together but soon lost it. I took a seat in the scoring tent and when I looked back at the putting green that had just defeated me, I considered all of the past efforts that went unjustified as well as all of the doors in the future that would not be opened. Heart restless and mind pounding, I walked on clinging onto the hope that this is ultimately for my good.
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