Since I spend my days working with students and their families, I am always excited when I come across a good, Godly role model for kids. It seems it is especially difficult to find young women who let it be known that they are totally selling out for Jesus Christ. But this past weekend, I was introduced to a senior at LSU named Mo Isom. I think she will make a great example for our teens.

Let me share a bit of her back ground. She is a soccer star, a 6 ft. goalie with unbelievable skills. When she graduates this spring, she is trying to use her last year of eligibility and be the kicker on the men’s football team. She is that good!

But as a teenager, she became bulimic. At one point, she was throwing up ten times a day to control her weight and deemphasize her height. She worked out 6 hours a day and added diet and energy pills to keep her “skinny.” As she started her collegiate career, her health suffered significantly.

And then her father committed suicide. Six months later she was in a major car wreck and suffered a broken neck, broken ribs, damaged lungs and some severe brain contusions. With amazing strength of character, she rebounded from each of these life altering experiences.

And somewhere along the line, she reoriented her entire spiritual life. In January 2011, she made a very public intimacy pledge. She called it, “Kissless ’till next Christmas.” She wasn’t a weird gal, avoiding normal social encounters. In fact, she was LSU’s homecoming queen last year. Instead, she used the pledge as a way to focus her attention on an intimate relationship with Christ.

Recently she was asked, “Did you REALLY make it the WHOLE year without sharing even as much as a kiss?” And she answered, “I sure did. Absolutely. Without a doubt. Did it. Made it. Loved it! It did not come without great sacrifice, bouts of loneliness, apprehensions. At the beginning of the year I tried to rekindle a relationship (void of the physicality) with my then-boyfriend, but that wasn’t what God had asked for. He had asked for all of me. 100% of my heart. So I had to cut myself off from a wonderful man and move forward with my pledge to our King. Is that normal? Probably not. But was it worth it? Without a doubt. I am a woman who honors my commitments, and I made a commitment to God. There was nothing that was going to deter me from my promise… There was plenty that could have distracted me, but as time progressed, God revealed Himself in such beautiful ways. He cleansed my heart of so many of the emotions and desires that young adults get caught up in. And when my heart was scrubbed clean, He filled it with so much Light! So much hope! So much joy! I would say that after the third month, reliance on a guy was the last thing on my mind. I was, and continue to be, so wrapped in such an intimate and filling relationship with our Lord, that words can’t even do justice for His sufficiency. His grace was enough.”

Wow…now there is a Godly role model to consider this week!

By His Grace and for His Glory,
Sherry L. Worel