Last
Thursday I learned Tiger Woods and I share a similar
marital experience yet with a drastically different
cause and effect. Tiger’s middle of the night,
driveway demolition derby began with immoral choices
he made years earlier, and ended with his trophy
wife using a seven-iron to smash out the back window
of his Escalade. Since I lack public notoriety, and
since my incident involved no moral indiscretions,
my driveway event failed to make the supermarket
tabloids. Here is my story.
It was a Saturday afternoon last June and I was
hauling a load of trash to the landfill. I hopped in
my pickup and was rolling down my driveway, when my
trophy wife stepped out of the house carrying a sack
of garbage I had forgotten. She hollered and waved
as I rattled across the cattle guard.
Realizing she could not scream loud enough, nor run
fast enough to grab my attention, she kicked off her
shoe, and flung it 150 feet, skipping it off the
hood of my pickup. Being an alert driver ever aware
of my surroundings, I immediately recognized
something was amiss, so I stomped the brakes and
skidded to a halt.
“You forgot one,” my trophy wife laughed as she
limped to the pickup to toss in the last bag and
retrieve her shoe. End of story…no unconscious
golfer in the middle of the street, no 911 call, no
reckless driving charge, and no paparazzi. It was
just a dumb old cow doctor and his trophy wife
laughing about a memory on a Saturday afternoon.
Tiger’s situation is different and his moral lapse
troubles me greatly. Because of my Christian beliefs
I would hope there are famous athletes and Hollywood
personalities who share my convictions. But it is
discouraging when you discover someone you admire
has broken their marital vows and thrown their
spouse and family under the bus.
Certainly, God can forgive us should we ask His Son
for redemption, but it is our family who will be
most hurt by our transgressions. Far too few people
treat their marital vow with the respect it
desperately deserves, and many young children will
cry themselves to sleep tonight trying to fill the
emptiness created by the dissolution of their home.
Our American family is dying.
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