Last week we watched our daughter play in a golf tournament at Stonebridge Golf Club in Rome, Georgia. The ninth hole of the golf course is a par 5 where a water hazard protects a peninsula green. After a layup drive, the shortest distance to the green is a direct carry over the water. The yardage to the point of the peninsula is tempting. Many of the golfers have carried the ball that distance before. They have all seen it done and some have done it. However, the water is also on both sides of the green so it leaves a very narrow window to place the perfect shot, a couple of yards to the left or right of the target leaves the ball in the water.
There is another alternative that doesn’t require a perfect shot. Instead of going straight for the green, there is a large landing area to the right of the green that requires two good shots to get to the green. Both shots will have to carry a part of the water, but with more manageable distance and accuracy requirements. As we watched, those who were able to exercise the restraint to take the longer route to the green found more opportunities for birdie than those who attempted the shot over the water.
We can often find ourselves zooming in on one perfect option, blinding us to other possibilities available to us. We may feel that only perfect shots will suffice but perhaps our good efforts may be more perfect than we think. As a child, I remember my mother having “bad days” when she was not the mother or person she wanted to be. Though I know those days were discouraging for her, with resolve and faith she tried again the next day.
None of us are who we want to be all the time and as I grew and began to increasingly feel my own weakness, I realized that her efforts in striving and repenting and coming back to try again were the lessons I needed most. While she wanted to be “perfect”, the best option for teaching me about the grace of Jesus Christ and how to grow myself came from her more imperfect days.
“Ours is not a religion of perfectionism but a religion of redemption- redemption through Jesus Christ. If we are among the penitent, with His Atonement our sins are nailed to His cross and ‘with His stripes we are healed.’” (Elder D. Todd Christofferson, October 2021) We don’t need to make perfect shots. We don’t need perfect days. We need striving, repenting and coming back to try again, relying on the grace and merits of our Savior. We need to be redeemed. That is His perfect plan.