Companions in Courage by Pat LaFontaine & Ernie Valutis & Chas Griffin & Larry Weisman

Author:Pat LaFontaine & Ernie Valutis & Chas Griffin & Larry Weisman [LAFONTAINE, PAT]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: BIO001000
ISBN: 9780759520516
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Published: 2001-01-11T05:00:00+00:00

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Monica Weidenbach

Celebrities and sports heroes certainly get a lot of media coverage and have a tremendous impact on those who admire them. But there is a special place in my heart for the quiet, lesser-known battlers that I see every day. They don’t make headlines, but their lessons are no less powerful. One morning I was waiting for a plane and I read about a local boy who was playing on his high school soccer team. Nothing unusual? Well, this young lad was playing with a walker for support. I thought, “There must be thousands of folk like that, in every avenue of life, filled with personal, courageous stories.”

Monica Weidenbach is one of them.

Monica was a high school English teacher in western New York. She and her husband, Ed, shared a passion for golf. “The first time I swung a golf club was in a crowded adult night school class. It was love at first whiff,” she said.

It didn’t take long for her to join in the quest of millions of golfers—take lessons to improve, get a hole in one, and make it to a twelve handicap. Monica’s style was to respect her teacher, work diligently, and apply her never-give-up attitude. By the summer of 1997 she was golfing at every opportunity. She joined a challenging local club and played so often that her Jeep could find the course in the dark.

But later that summer Monica began to feel some back pain after a round of golf. Aging? An illegal bag bursting with wedges? Not so simple. “The reality of my breast cancer in 1993 had returned with a vengeance. It had metastasized extensively throughout my liver, my skeletal system, and even to the marrow of my bones,” she said.

The medical world presented Monica a grave prognosis with little hope. “I desired to live,” she said. “I was forty-five years young, deeply in love with my husband, and filled with dreams, the least of which was to see my golf handicap in the low teens. When you believe you are going to die, it is not far-fetched to review your life, take assessment of more than your golf handicap.”

Monica’s life assessment led to an inward journey toward meaning and found its roots in a deep faith in God. She knew she was in a war. “I put on the whole armor of God and marched into battle and refused to even think retreat. Jesus was going to be my Companion in Courage,” she said. Friends and loved ones helped carry the ammunition. Associates at her club established a fund-raising tournament for financial and emotional support. “It was less the appearance of a generous check and more the love of everyone involved that gave Ed and me the feeling we were not in this war alone.”

Monica proclaimed her faith and believed that through God’s love and his Word she would be healed of her cancer. Her style of playing competitive golf was a perfect fit for her battle with the disease. “I did not underestimate my opponent, but I did not allow his reputation to paralyze me.

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