by Mo Isom
But, in truth, my resentment and my anger and my frustrations were really just rationalizations for a heart that was calloused from years of unforgiveness. My soul still reeked of blame. And while I understood how all-inclusively Christ had forgiven me, I just couldn’t surrender the cemented belief, deep down, that my dad’s actions weren’t forgivable.
But in Ephesians 4:31–32, there was a word that stood out to me and helped peel back an unexpected layer in the process of forgiving freely. “Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice. Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you” (emphasis added).
Compassion. Sympathy and concern for the misfortunes of others. After I came across those words, compassion was a seed God planted in me and began to nourish. A new thought began to slowly reframe my perspective of forgiveness. My prayers shifted from, “God, help me forgive more freely,” to “God, you have known the greatest compassion for me in my failings. I long to look more like you. Will you nurture a heart of compassion within me?”
I saw him first as a little boy. My daddy. With his soft olive skin and his round face. Carefree and joy-filled and innocent. A simple Southern boy with two parents who loved him deeply.
I saw him as a young teen, bouncing around from school to school with each of his dad’s job transfers. Moving from football team to football team, trying to establish his footing. Maybe he was bullied—or struggled to feel like he ever really fit any one place. Uprooted every time he’d finally made a name for himself among his teammates.
I saw him as a college football player and, eventually, a law student. Navigating the dating scene and balancing his course load. I smiled to imagine what he must have been like so near to me in age—and laughed remembering the time he told me he once dated a girl with the nickname “Toot.” I wondered what his friends had been like, and what had stirred his passion for law.
I saw him as a young man meeting and falling for my beautiful mom. I imagined the butterflies he must have felt as he watched her glide down the aisle. The excitement and nervousness he must have known as he took on the role of husband and they dreamed of their future family.
I could almost feel the warm tears that rolled down his cheeks as he helped deliver my sister and me. As he navigated the highs and lows of carrying the title of Daddy. As he wrestled with the pressures of raising preteen girls and the expectation of providing for a busy family.
I ached for how his heart must have broken with the death of his own daddy. How deeply he must have grieved. And I smiled thinking about the laughter he brought to the basketball court as he volunteered his time to coach Special Olympians and other athletes with disabilities.
I ached for the stress and pressure he must have felt when work was tough and money was tight and everything in him wanted to seem strong for his family. And I saw him in a new light as I thought about the demons he admitted to wrestling. The strangleholds that gripped him sexually, in regards to his struggles with pornography. The pride that must have felt so damaged by Satan’s relentless taunts and schemes.
I thought about his insecurities. His deep-rooted weaknesses. And how similar he and I truly were in so many broken ways. I saw the man who was always able to love others far more than he was ever able to love himself sitting on the edge of that hotel bed, his heart pounding and his hands trembling.
My heart broke for that innocent Southern boy who had truly believed life wasn’t worth it and gave up. The olive-skinned baby who had seen a lot of life and who was worn out and tired and aching.
Compassion bred forgiveness because it allowed me to see another human as just that—human. Worn and ravaged and navigating a broken world, just like me. It gave a history to the action that had wronged me and opened up a broader perspective to understand that even people who have wronged us so deeply have a story—a reason why sin has a stronghold in their lives. Hurt people hurt people. I wasn’t instructed to withhold forgiveness from the hurting; I was instructed to be kind and compassionate, having mercy on the lost and wandering, just as God had mercy on me.
Grace had been extended to me. And I was being called to grace. By finally forgiving my father, I encountered an intimacy with Christ that stretched away from logic and made sense of the nonsensical and introduced me to a different kind of humility. A Jesus-kind of humility that had everything to do with God and little to do with me. I had been foolish to mistake kindness for weakness—the strength of a lion can exist within the spirit of a lamb. Forgiveness is selfless strength. If we want to look even a bit like Jesus, we must embrace the willingness to forgive freely.
The Holy Army
It would be foolish to believe that when we make Jesus Christ the Lord of our lives Satan steps back, counts his losses, and moves on. That’s far from the truth. The enemy is bitter. Resentful. Keen. Individuals in pursuit of a closer relationship with Christ are often targeted, tested, and tempted. A life lived in faith doesn’t exempt us from hardship or wreckage or suffering, but there is a difference in how those in Christ combat Satan’s schemes. When the Holy Spirit dwells within our hearts, we enter battle in the midst of a holy army. We face temptation with the strength of a King on our side and the love of a gentle Father who picks us up when we fall. We enter valleys with a divine hope carrying us through, and we’re equipped with an armor of God that wields righteousness, readiness, faith, salvation, and the Spirit of His unending truth (Eph. 6:10–18).
I find that one of the greatest assets to living boldly is the unbelievable blessing found in accountability and community. Battle becomes infinitely easier when the holy army that can rise up alongside us is a holy army we also do life with, daily. Proverbs 13:20 reads, “Walk with the wise and become wise, for a companion of fools suffers harm.” Loving deeply and forgiving freely comes to life when we have brothers and sisters in Christ marching forward with us, arm-in-arm. Through community and accountability God desires for us to trust in Him and surrender our lives to Him to the ultimate point of giving up our lives for one another, just as Christ did. In prayer, in fellowship, in confession, and in trust, we are invited to live life as a body of believers, led by bold love.
I love my community—my holy army. It’s something I lacked so deeply for so many years—and now is one of my greatest blessings. One of my sisters in Christ, in particular, has taught me so much about what it means to do life with someone authentically. Even when life is hard. And raw. And frustrating.
Molly and I met under the messiest of circumstances during my senior year. She was a brand-new transfer onto LSU’s soccer team and a brand-new believer to boot. Our mutual sense of humor that no one else seemed to find funny meant immediate and over-the-top bonding—complete with razor scooter rides around our apartment complex and late-night sessions learning “Hot Cross Buns” on the recorder and costumed runs to get frozen yogurt in town. We were weird.
We were also two sinners saved by grace with messy pasts and a lot of repercussions for our sins still echoing through our lives. Mine were easier to conceal and deal with privately. But hers were on display for the world to see. None more clearly than the positive pregnancy test that interrupted everything.
I watched as a repercussion of Molly’s previous sexual sin literally came to life within her. I felt beyond helpless as we cried together that hot August afternoon, and I journeyed with her as she weighed the costs of all she would be losing. Then I stood back, and stood in awe, as I watched Molly, a brand-new believer, stand up against a lot of opposing opinion and choose Christ, who unwaveringly chose life for her sweet baby.
On a day when it seemed like the world was ending, we cried hard. But I began learning from her, seeing what it looked like to be soaked in mercy and grace, and we couldn’t help but feel like God was purposing a special story. Binding together a friendship that was different—and heart-wrecking—and important.
We lost touch for a bit after she withdrew from LSU
and moved back home to Arizona to complete her pregnancy, but God never stopped pressing her on my heart. And in praying through what community really meant in His eyes, and what sharing life with someone looked like even when it was challenging, we reconnected and found our stride walking as sisters in Christ.
Four years later we haven’t missed a beat. We’ve done life together every single day with half of the country between us. I’ve had the privilege of watching Molly raise her incredibly beautiful daughter, and I’ve studied her every move, knowing that when I welcome a child of my own, I will want to follow her example. Our friendship has taken us to the mission field in Africa and to the rainforests of Costa Rica, where she wept in joy beside me as I said “I do.” It has held tight through breakups, way-too-late-night phone calls, lots of tears, lots of sin, and lots of grace. It has waded through the loss of her sweet brother, the completion of her college degree, and the amazing journey she is now on, rocking it with the Arizona FCA team.
She keeps my stomach hurting from laughing so hard, my head hurting from how frustrating she can be, and my heart yearning for more of God as I see Him pour out of her, daily. She is as equally ridiculous as she is insightful—the kind of insightful that makes the holy Word crawl off of the page and mean something, every single day. We’re so deeply different. And some days that’s intensely frustrating. But every day it’s overwhelmingly rewarding to know I have a sister like Molly woven into my story.
Because when all is said and done, and adversity has inevitably punctured our lives and brokenness has found its way into our story and we’ve come to know pain and suffering, community helps remind us of the promises of God that guarantee He has overcome the world and that there is more. From the ashes and the broken pieces, let us not forget that “these three [things] remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love” (1 Cor. 13:13), and we are fiercely loved by a sovereign King who empowers us to fiercely love our sisters and brothers, in spite of everything. We are able to invite others to step out of their wreckage and step into a journey where they can voluntarily allow God to wreck their lives for His glory.
As a result, we’ll become a generation that stands forever faithful to the One who makes broken things bold. The One who wrecks our lives to save our lives, and invites us into His story. We’ll stand firm in His promises, even when they’re challenging. We’ll forever appreciate the truth in the holy Scripture that mightily breathes,
My suffering was good for me,
for it taught me to pay attention to your decrees. (Ps. 119:71 NLT)
Conclusion
Writing this book was more of a battle than I expected it to be. I’ve found that the enemy tends to attack us most fiercely in the midst of kingdom work, in the wake of pure efforts that could prove to be faith-strengthening and community-building and God-glorifying. I’ve also found that it’s easy, even as a believer who has been walking hand-in-hand with Christ for years, to doubt my effectiveness or question whether I’m even worthy of being used by God. To be disheartened by the internal voice that raises every kind of doubt and makes me overthink the simple and complicate the clear-cut and forget that God is doing a good work through me, not due to me.
It can be infinitely intimidating to share our own stories. To air out our baggage and confess our sins publicly and find the right words to make sense of the messy. I think it’s one of the hardest things, really—to share our testimonies. But then again, why wouldn’t it be? Scripture itself declares that Satan is defeated by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of our testimonies (see Rev. 12:11). If our boldness and our willingness to give voice to our vulnerability has the power to completely obliterate the enemy, should we expect him to go down easily? No. Satan puts up a fight—often an internal battle—that tries to convince us there is no power in our stories.
But what I love about a living, breathing relationship with God is that it centers around our brokenness and it makes a home amid our vulnerability. There is inherent humility in the gospel of Jesus Christ. To say that we’ve been set free is to confess we were bound up. To say that we’ve been washed clean is to confess we were impure. To say that we’ve been made new is to confess we were full of broken things. The beauty in all of those confessions is that they echo with glory.
You are not alone. Romans 3:23 reminds us that “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” First Corinthians 10:13 assures us that “no temptation has overtaken [us] except what is common to mankind.” My prayer is that you find rest in the truth that every one of us has baggage and every one of us carries a story. But you are promised that if you “humble yourselves before the Lord . . . he will lift you up” (James 4:10, emphasis added). So I also pray you begin to let God breathe boldness into your lungs and that the words of your testimony flow out freely. Because you are valuable, and you are loved, and God is orchestrating, through you, a powerful kingdom story.
The enemy would love for us to stay silent—to keep our sin in the shadows and feel like we are alone in our suffering. I hope, if this book has served any purpose at all, it has empowered you to realize connection and community are built through our transparency. There is no shame in bold authenticity. Your brokenness has the power to be transformed into boldness by the King who is authoring your story.
Acknowledgments
To Jeremiah, my one and only—thank you for choosing me. For humbly leading me. For relentlessly loving me. Thank you for putting up with my constant craziness and for taking big and bold and blind leaps of faith with me. Thank you for challenging me, for comforting me, and for never being shy to call me out for all the clever ways I tried to disguise my procrastination. You are my greatest adventure and the clearest picture of Christ’s love I’ve ever seen. Writing this book during our first year of marriage was hard. Moving through pregnancy at the same time was harder. But honoring you by becoming a Tampa Bay Buccaneers fan was the hardest challenge of all. So I hope it’s clear to you, now, that I love you unconditionally.
To Bill and Teresa—thank you for clicking the link to that random blog post and for taking the time to read my rambling words. Thank you for believing in the potential and tracking me down and breathing unexpected hope and excitement into my lifelong dream. The countless phone calls, the unfailing encouragement, the patience and the coaching—thank you for every step from start to finish of making this dream a reality. But most of all, thank you for your friendship and your authentic dedication to God’s calling in your lives. You two are a killer tag-team!
To Rebekah Guzman and the Baker team—thank you all for believing in me so deeply and for pursuing this clueless, first-time author so passionately. Your commitment to this project has taught me so much about the power of community. I’ve been blessed by the opportunity to learn all about this wild world of publishing with you all by my side and I can’t wait to see what the future holds as we move forward as a team.
Last but not least, to my sweet mommy—you are truly a prize, and I love you so deeply. Thank you for twenty-six years of relentlessly praying for me. Thank you for trusting God, even when it was beyond challenging, and for always honoring my privacy and freedom to navigate my own journey. Thank you for letting me share our lives so candidly and for trusting me to steward some of the hardest parts of our family’s story. Thank you for the countless hours of listening to me read what I had written, for your honest and blunt feedback, and for always laughing at me even when I’m not that funny. Thank you for all you have taught me about being a godly wife, a loving mother, and a brave daughter of the Most High King. I will always be your baby, and I’m so grateful God chose you to be my mom.
About the Author
I wish this section of the book read “About the Reader,” because I’m pretty tired of talking about myself and I’m anxious to know more about who took the time to hunker down and dig into this book to explore its rambling pages. Thank you for piecing through my story. For coming back to each chapter and walking with me through
my journey and sitting with me through the lessons I learned along the way. I wish we could be curled up on my couch, instead, talking life and Jesus and your story. Maybe one day! It’s an open-door policy here at the Aiken home, so if you’re passing through Atlanta, let us know.
There’s something about the author you might not have known—I’m actually now an Aiken. Mary Morlan Aiken. But I still go by my maiden name for the sake of street cred. And because Mo Isom is almost spelled the same forward and backward.
I married my best friend, Jeremiah Aiken, in September 2014, and we welcomed our beautiful daughter, Auden, in December 2015. We live in Georgia with our two dog-ters, Jacey and Penny (think moderately priced department store), and when I’m not writing, blogging, or traveling to speak, you can usually find us sprawled out in our pajamas watching football, exploring the best places to eat around the city, or spending time with our friends and family. We love our home church, Passion City, and are so grateful to be part of a church community that is always exploring new and radical ways to serve Jesus, worship boldly, and grow as a family.
I feel like my story is still being written, as I’m sure yours is too. I would love to hear from you, get to know you, and hear how this book challenged or encouraged you. You can connect with me through any of the outlets below. And if you’re really weird and still haven’t had enough, you can jump over to my blog to read more of my writing. Can’t wait to connect with you!
www.MoIsom.com
Twitter: www.twitter.com/MoIsom