Wreck My Life Page 6

  Athletically and physically, that spring was a time of adjustment and intentionality. Isaiah 40:29 reads, “He gives strength to the weary and increases the power of the weak.” God very quickly began to empower me in my weakness as I crawled out of my disordered eating habits and control issues and wholeheartedly focused on surrendering my compulsive needs for control to Him. Through the incredible structure of the LSU soccer program and the amazing provisions of the university, I found my focus reinspired. By giving God control, I was able to not only gradually strengthen my faith and dependence but to physically strengthen my body as well—in a healthy manner. I worked, relentlessly, taking no shortcuts in my healing and development, and channeled my energy into learning how to adjust my skillset to compete effectively at the collegiate level. I knew I had been recruited to hopefully become a first-string starter as a freshman, so I made it my goal to earn my stripes and prove my worth right out of the gate in our spring scrimmages. And by holding shutouts against both national powerhouses UNC and Duke, I felt like I did just that. After remaining at school through the summer and finding my second home in the weight room, come fall I felt well-equipped to step onto the field and help lead my team.

  Though fresh in my independent faith walk, I felt fairly well-equipped there too. The lies and twisted thoughts hadn’t fully subsided, but with each step I drew nearer to Christ, it became clearer how to identify those deceitful thoughts and draw them out. Satan constantly tried to penetrate my mind and heart from new and creative angles, but the blessings and provisions surrounding me at LSU helped me muffle his lies.

  One of the enemy’s boldest attempts to twist my thoughts came disguised in a surprising way, but one I’ve learned is far more common than I realized at the time. It’s a plague, really. A contagious lie so many of us believe or have wrestled with throughout our walk. A subtle manipulation of thought causing hordes of believers to stay silent—content with an unseen, unheard walk.

  This faith walk is fine. In fact, it’s good.

  You can call yourself a Christian. There’s nothing wrong with that. In fact, it’s a popular title to have. There are churches all around. You’re in the Bible Belt, after all. So this is normal.

  But you need to be careful.

  It would be best for you to keep this newfound faith to yourself.

  You know perfectly well you don’t understand it all, and your behavior and choices sometimes sing a different tune.

  If you’re going to be outspoken about God, about His Word, then you need to know all of the answers. You need to be living perfectly first.

  You need to be able to quote Scripture. You need to know the chronology of it all. If you don’t know all of the Scriptures and fully comprehend grace and have a response for anyone who tries to throw it back in your face, then you lose.

  You need to have an answer for anyone who opposes you or asks questions. You need to be able to lead other people to the faith. If you can’t defend the faith properly, then you’re going to look like a fool.

  If you can’t effectively share the gospel or preach your testimony then you’re nowhere near ready to be bold. You won’t be good enough. A good enough Christian, at least.

  So be a Christian. That’s fine.

  But shh . . . keep it to yourself. You don’t have to be one of the bold ones. Don’t get uncomfortable.

  Just blend.

  Shh . . . Keep living as you are and you’ll be fine.

  Those words almost won. Those thoughts and my nervousness and my comfort level almost rationalized truth into those lies. As if God’s grace was ordinary enough to silently coast through a room unnoticed—to coast through my life unseen and unheard. As if this strength I could feel Him rebuilding and this hope I felt Him restoring and these blessings I saw Him ordaining were average enough for me to keep quiet.

  No. With each new step of faith, new words were finding their place in my heart and on my lips, and when the enemy attacked I’d nervously fight back.

  So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God. (1 Cor. 10:31)

  But I trust in your unfailing love;

  my heart rejoices in your salvation.

  I will sing the LORD’s praise,

  for he has been good to me. (Ps. 13:5–6)

  My tongue will proclaim your righteousness,

  your praises all day long. (Ps. 35:28)

  As for me, I would give God praise. Even when I was Googling verses and fumbling through the Word and close to completely unaware of any of the context of what I was reading, God’s truth still found me and constantly reminded me that He wasn’t asking me to be perfect. He wasn’t asking me to have all the answers or to know all the Scriptures or to be the “best Christian” before I openly shared my faith. He wasn’t asking me to have it all figured out—rather He was gently reminding me I had nothing figured out. And lovingly teaching me that, even still, He would meet all my needs.

  God coaxed me into such a place of peace with each passing day that I found my way to my knees. Through imperfect prayer and clueless Bible searching, He still met me. He welcomed me. He reminded me that, in time, He would teach me and grow me. But what He desired first, in my brand-new walk of faith, was simply to step out and give Him the glory. Not to be shy. Not to be afraid. But in all things, in everything, to start by giving Him praise.

  So I set my mind to doing just that. In all things I worked to give God the glory. In response to my small steps of faithfulness, I began to notice even more beautiful and unquestionable blessings. For one, my relationship with my dad drastically improved. I knew he was sad having his baby girl so far away, but I never expected our friendship to mend so tightly. We chatted on the phone throughout the day, with nine or ten calls back and forth becoming nothing out of the ordinary. As a former college football player who saw his dreams and goals cut short by injury, he delighted in my collegiate journey.

  My academics excelled as well as I found a rhythm in balancing soccer and my studies. My behavior leveled out as the luster of “new” wore off so many tempting, empty things and I started to discover who I was as a young, independent woman and find my own groove as a college athlete. My confidence and excitement when I stepped into my first official season as a Tiger felt unparalleled to anything I’d ever felt before. Little did I know the blessing God was about to orchestrate through the sport I loved was unparalleled to anything the soccer world had ever seen.

  My Ninety-Yard Blessing

  It was my second game ever as a freshman in college and early in the second half of a home game against BYU. I didn’t think much of it when a foul was called just outside my goalkeeper’s box. I waved off my defender and strolled up to the ball, scanning the field for an open player and figuring out where I wanted to place it. I suppose nobody thought much of me jogging up about thirty yards from the end line to take the free kick. After all, I hadn’t just been recruited for my shot-saving ability between the pipes; it was already widely known that my leg was a weapon for our team’s attack.

  I spotted one of our fastest forwards pressing hard on BYU’s back line and set my mind to playing the ball over the cluster of players around midfield in order to give her a shot at turning a quick attack. With that, I lined up, paced my strides, and let the rhythm of my technique flow through me. A few soft steps and I kicked the ball.

  I knew the moment I made contact that it was a solid kick. An experienced player can hear the difference. You can feel it. And that kick felt good. What I didn’t realize was just how far the strike was soaring on that still August night. I glanced down to backpedal back to my net, but the screams of the crowd quickly forced me to look up.

  One bounce was all it took. BYU’s goalkeeper had cheated off her line to cut the angle on our speeding forward. But in doing so she completely misjudged the ball’s drop. In fact, no one could have judged the ball’s drop. Because it didn’t drop—for seventy yards. By the time it hit the ground it was too late for her to adjust.
All it took was a single bounce, and I watched as the keeper leapt up and arched back as the ball curled over her outstretched arms. Bounce . . . bounce . . . and into the net it rolled.

  I had just scored a ninety-yard goal.

  The stands erupted. My teammates came sprinting. It felt, in that moment, like the whole earth was shaking. The fans shook the stadium with cheers and applause and the announcer’s voice boomed over the loud speaker. I yelled in shock as my teammates piled around me and the celebration lasted for what felt like a century. I don’t think it clicked in that moment that somehow I had just achieved a feat in the sport that had never been documented before. A feat that I most certainly couldn’t have accomplished through my own strength and power. A feat God would use to begin building a platform bigger than I could have fathomed.

  In that moment all that I wanted to do was look up. My daddy was sitting right beneath the press box and even in the midst of all the chaos and noise, I knew I heard his voice in the stands. It was a voice yelling with the echoes of a pride born so deep within his heart it couldn’t be imitated—only felt. A pride and excitement so organic, so true, that I felt its vibrations down to my core. My dad was yelling so loudly I thought he was going to burst. He already looked, at any given moment, like he was about forty-five months pregnant, so with the screaming added on top of his overwhelming frame, he looked like Fat Tarzan pounding his chest up there. Catching his eye, I saw a smile strung wider than any I had ever seen before. I swear his teeth were touching his ears. I saw a joy beaming so fantastically from him he took on a glow, and I’m still surprised he didn’t rip his shirt off.

  As the game continued and the play progressed, that man was still screaming. Still cheering so loudly I doubted the people in the press box could even hear themselves think. Ten minutes later . . . still cheering. Oozing with a passion that seemed to have just been waiting to overflow. A passion that a man, usually so disciplined and stoic in his demeanor, usually able to wrestle down such deep-rooted struggles, couldn’t control. A passion, I would later learn, I was fortunate to witness. In that moment I didn’t want to let it go.

  The next thing I knew that goal was splashed across the television, magazines, and the internet. Appearing as a #3 play on SportsCenter Top10 plays—an extreme rarity for women’s college soccer—that incredible kick was suddenly being watched and rewatched all around the globe. Strewn across the pages of Sports Illustrated and linked onto YouTube, Break.com, and countless other sites, the energy of that play took on a life of its own. LSU Soccer was put on the map in a matter of moments, and recognition and attention seemed to come to our team effortlessly.

  Throughout the rest of that season, my daddy was always there. A relationship blossomed between me and him that was so beautiful and pure I felt humbled to be a part of it. The season was record-breaking. In continuing to work my hardest athletically and, in all the ways I knew how, giving God the glory, I felt the blessings continue to rain down. By the end of my fall semester I was on top of the world. I had played every minute in goal for the Tigers in 2008 and helped lead our top-ranked defensive unit to the most dominant stats in the SEC. I broke single-season records at LSU and became a conference contender in the net. I was named Freshman All-American, Louisiana Freshman of the Year, and a member of the SEC All-Freshman Team, along with numerous other awards. I was invincible. Untouchable. At that point, you couldn’t have convinced me life would ever be anything less than all I dreamed.

  That was until I returned to Georgia for Christmas break and, on January 2, 2009, my daddy didn’t come home.

  Missing

  It was interesting how quickly my spiritual perspective had shifted. Returning to Georgia for Christmas, I was riding high from the successes of the season. While I wasn’t still stuck in the misconstrued maze of the cultural Christianity I’d always settled for at home, the whirlwind of my new faith walk and the successes of my freshman year had left me with a different, yet still incomplete, perspective of God. In my mind, being a Christian meant giving the glory to God and benefitting, in response, from His immeasurable blessings. I felt naive for seemingly missing the point for so long. I was convinced that a walk with the Lord guaranteed provision and blessing and success and ease. After all, that was the model I had seen play out for the past year in my own life. I had no reason to believe that God’s economy of value didn’t work exactly like that.

  I was happy to be surrounded by the nostalgia of home and was blissfully unaware of any changes or tensions that existed outside of my own bubble. I remember my dad calling me into his room a few days after I had returned home. As I sat on the edge of the bed, I noticed a hint of fatigue in his eyes. A dimming of the twinkle that was so familiar—the twinkle I had seen shining by that soccer field just a few months before. But a fresh glimmer quickly sparked in his excitement to show me the reason he had called me in to the room, so I didn’t think much of the sadness I thought I’d briefly seen. On his bedside table radio, he played the broadcast that was recorded during my ninety-yard goal and beamed with joy. For what must have been ten straight minutes, we laughed together, replayed the sound clip, and bounced on his bed, drunk with pride and excitement. I’ll never forget the joy of that moment—nor will I forget the single tear I saw him wipe from his cheek when he thought I wasn’t looking.

  In the days that followed, life was every bit as normal as it had been in my youth. Our family exchanged stories, visited friends, and shared laughs. That Christmas was just like every other Isom family Christmas: dramatic, chaotic, dizzying. But comfortable. Throughout that time, my dad began opening up to me about deep, personal things we had never discussed before. Thoughts of his childhood, details of his relationships.

  Looking back, I see now that he was different. He made himself so vulnerable yet so inaccessible at the same time. I knew he’d had a hard time adjusting to both of his girls being out of the house and off at school, but he seemed weakened, distracted by something, and tired. I attributed our newfound vulnerability to circumstance. We had missed each other, I was growing up, he was growing older, and we were both growing closer. I savored those moments, deeply.

  New Year’s came and went in a matter of four riveting quarters. My family created fantastic memories at the Peach Bowl, where LSU pommelled Georgia Tech in the Georgia Dome. With unbelievable seats and friends in town to entertain, I was oblivious to the drastic shift in emotions that had taken place in our family that day. I recognized that my mom seemed out of character—discontent, frustrated, resentful. But the energy of the evening prevented me from asking questions. I dismissed the situation and figured it was none of my business. My distracted and idealistic rationale convinced me that God would care for our family. Whatever the problem was, God would sort it out. I was giving Him the glory so He would, in turn, glorify us. That’s how it worked, right?

  January 2 was the day that everything came to a crashing halt. I remember, so vividly, standing in the boutique at my winter job that morning when my cell phone rang. My dad and I talked on the phone way too often every day, so when I looked at the caller ID and saw his name, I couldn’t help but smile. He knew I was at work, he knew I couldn’t talk. But best friends have no problem breaking the rules. Our conversation was every bit as normal as usual. He asked me how my day was going, what I was up to at work, when I would be home. We made small talk for about ten minutes until a wave of customers came in and I finally convinced him that I had to go.

  Before hanging up I casually said, “Love ya!” and lowered the phone. But this time I heard his voice call out on the other end of the line. I lifted the receiver back to my ear and heard what seemed like the voice of a different man. In a tone so eerily calm, so genuine, and so sad, my daddy simply said, “I love you so much, Morlan.”

  I stood for a moment, curious and unsettled, then replied in as stoic and truthful a tone as he, “I love you too, Dad. More than anything.”

  Click.

  I returned home from work that even
ing around six o’clock and made my way inside, strolling past the vacant space where my dad’s truck was usually parked. I remember finding it odd that he wasn’t home yet, especially considering the fact that, a family man through and through, he never seemed to get home later than 5:30. But I brushed off my concern and made my way up the back porch steps. When I walked inside, there was an energy and tension in the house that is still difficult to describe. The air seemed tight and still. But I was wrapped up in my own thoughts and to-dos and didn’t think too much of the quiet chill.

  Over the next few hours, my sister made her way in and out of my room. Sloan seemed disheveled and concerned, asking me over and over where Dad was and if I had spoken to him. I laughed off her worry and assured her he was fine, but her angst seemed to build as the minutes ticked by. I tried calling him a number of times, but after thirty minutes of his phone going straight to voicemail, my anxiety began to rise as well. Just as I was going to make my way downstairs to talk to my mom, her voice echoed up the steps. A voice shaken with fear—one that demanded attention. A voice unfamiliar from a woman so steady and strong. She called us into the formal living room and we came down to find her feverishly pacing, her quick steps mirroring the quickening pace of our hearts.

  My mom’s cheeks were ruddy and hot, yet her demeanor was so forcefully calm that she took on the mannerisms of a marionette. I could see that she wanted to erupt, to cry out in fear, to panic and scream. But being the woman of poise and faith that she was, she remained as calm and steadfast as she could, undoubtedly held together by the grace of God alone. She proceeded to tell us of the events that had passed in the last two days. Of financial issues and complete confusion and phone calls with the IRS and unpaid taxes and overwhelming deception. She had unknowingly uncovered a series of lies my dad had been concealing, and now that the truth had come to the surface he was nowhere to be found.