Angry Conversations with God
Copyright © 2009 by Susan E. Isaacs
All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced,
distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written
permission of the publisher.
Unless otherwise noted, Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®. Copyright © 1973,
1978, 1984 International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved.
The “NIV” and “New International Version” trademarks are registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office by International
Bible Society.
Use of either trademark requires the permission of International Bible Society.
Scripture quotations marked
NLT
are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright 1996, 2004. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers,
Inc., Wheaton, Illinois 60189. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations marked
NKJV
are from the New King James Version. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations marked
KJV
are from the King James Version of the Holy Bible.
Scripture quotations marked
TLB
are taken from
The Living Bible,
copyright © 1971. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, Illinois 60189. All rights reserved.
I SEE JESUS. Words and Music by Charles B. Wycuff.
Copyright © 1957 Lovely Name Music ASCAP. All rights controlled by Gaither Copyright Management. Used by permission.
SOMETHING CHANGED. Words and Music by Sara Groves. Copyright © 2005 Sara Groves Music (admin. by Music Services).
All rights reserved. ASCAP.
Head of Christ
© 1941 Warner Press, Inc., Anderson, Indiana.
All rights reserved. Used by permission.
Faith Words
Hachette Book Group
237 Park Avenue
New York, NY 10017
Visit our Web site at
www.faithwords.com.
First eBook Edition: March 2009
The FaithWords name and logo are trademarks of Hachette Book Group USA.
ISBN: 978-0-446-54469-6
Contents
INTRODUCTION: Don’t Skip This Just Because It’s an Introduction!
Chapter 1: GETTING GOD ON THE COUCH
Chapter 2: THE NICE JESUS ON EVERY WALL
Chapter 5: WE’VE ONLY JUST BEGUN
Chapter 6: THE HOKEY POKEY FOR OAKIES
Chapter 7: ROCK ’N’ ROLL SLACKERS 4 JESUS
Chapter 8: AWAKEN THE GIANT HORMONE WITHIN
Chapter 9: BREAKING UP OVER DENTISTRY
Chapter 11: NEW LEASE, NEW LIFE, NEW YORK
Chapter 12: MOSTLY MISTER RIGHT
Chapter 13: A FATHER’S VALEDICTION
Chapter 14: MY OWN PRIVATE SEPTEMBER 11
Chapter 15: GOD’S SCORCHED-EARTH POLICY
Chapter 16: MIDDLE-CLASS WHITE GIRL’S DARK NIGHT OF THE SOUL
Chapter 17: NOBODY’S FAULT BUT MY OWN
Chapter 18: FOR FUN AND FOR FREE
Chapter 19: THE BEST THING THAT EVER HAPPENED TO ME
For Mother:
you prayed for me.
For Larry:
you were her answer.
GIVEN THAT THIS IS MY FIRST BOOK AND IT COVERS MOST OF MY
life, I’ve got a lot of people to thank. On a personal level, first I’d like to thank my wonderful family and friends for
allowing me to use our histories for comic effect. Don’t worry: I changed your names and made you thin and pretty. If I didn’t
change your name, I made you even thinner and prettier. Second, I’d like to thank my mentors: Barbara Van Holt, for making
the honest mistake of telling me I could do anything. So it took me thirty years. Roy Kammerman, for your fatherly love and
frankness that wouldn’t accept mediocrity. I’ll see you up there, Roy. To Ron Boyer: thanks for your friendship, guidance,
and sense of humor. To Terrie Silverman, whose Creative Rites workshop birthed this book: thanks for your enthusiasm, writing
exercises, and Beatles Teas.
Third, thanks to the writers and friends who encouraged me in and out of class: Mim Abbey, Andrea Askowitz, Catheryn Brockett,
Jeff Cellers, Matthew Corozine, Chris Frederick, John and Charmien Fugelsang, Jordan Green, Tony Hale, Mary Mac-Donald, Donald
Miller, Christopher Myers, Cade Newman, Jeannie Noth-Gaffigan, Ann Randolph, Meredith Stephenson, Cameron Tayler, and Todd
“the King” Wilkerson. Lori Rooney: thanks for reading my drafts like a soap opera, one chapter at a time. You kept me writing!
Dave and Heather Kopp: thanks for playing friend/editor/eleventh-hour therapist. Thanks also to Larry and Nancy Myers for
the cabin.
On a professional level, first I must thank my lovely editor, Anne Horch, who tracked me down and championed this book. Your
painful honesty and gracious demeanor forced me to write better every time. You pulled the very best out of me, Anne. Many
thanks also to my classy agent, Jenny Bent, who negotiated much more than a deal. Thank you for taking on a firsttime author
and walking me through the brave new world of books. And a big thanks to Lori Quinn, Jana Burson, Paige Collins, Harry Helm,
and all the groovy people at Hachette Book Group USA.
Last, I must thank my husband, Lauren Glade Wilson: for your cheerleading, your fine editorial eye, and the sacrificial love
that made you get up every morning and go into an office, just so I could write this. You’re the coolest, bravest man I know.
A FEW YEARS AGO, I WROTE A COMEDY SKETCH TITLED “COUPLES
Therapy,” in which I took God to counseling. God showed up in a toga, and we proceeded to have a domestic argument: he was
gone too much, I didn’t give him quality time; he was seeing other people, I was the clay complaining to the potter. Then
Jesus showed up in tie-dye and beads and tried to get us to chill out. It was good fun.
Until a couple of years later, when my life actually fell apart. I went to see a Christian therapist to repair my relationship
with God. The therapist you meet in this story is a composite of the many therapists I’ve consulted in my lifetime. The therapy
sessions you read in this book are
fictionalized
conversations of
factual
therapy sessions.
Which brings me to another issue. Celebrated writer/editor William Zinsser edited a classic book of essays on the craft of
the memoir titled
Inventing the Truth.
The first word was not lost on me: truth needs to be
invented
—that is, it needs to be crafted into a story worthy of your time. If, as Alfred Hitchcock once said, drama is life with the
boring bits cut out, I cut out the boring bits. I also changed the names of some people to protect their anonymity; I left
other people’s names intact (e.g., “Mom” and “Dad”) to honor their imprint on my life. I made composites of still other people
(Rudy O’Shea, Mrs. Proctor, Pastor Craig, Julianne, Doug, Veronique, Cheryl, and Geoff), not to mess with you or the truth
but to keep the story under a thousand pages. I moved a few events around just to streamline the story and, well,
take out the boring bits.
But this is the truth as I remember it.
As a final point of clarification, I believe that Jesus
is
God; he’s part of the Trinity. But for this book, Jesus will just be “Jesus.” God the Father will be “God.” (I tried calling
God “Abba,” but I kept hearing “Dancing Queen” in my head.) You won’t hear much from the Holy Spirit. Jesus once said that
the Spirit is like the wind—you can’t see him; you can only see what he does. He’ll just be “around.” So Jesus is “Jesus”
and God the Father is “God.” Unless I’m referring to God in generalized terms. Don’t worry—you’ll get it as we go along.
DON’T SKIP THIS JUST BECAUSE IT’S AN INTRODUCTION!
I WAS SITTING AT A CAFÉ IN NEW YORK CITY IN JULY 2003. IT WAS A
stifling hot afternoon, but I was shivering cold after a month of not eating. Heartbreak will do that to you. It hurt to
eat; it hurt to breathe. I wanted to scrape off my skin just to get out of my body. I had starved down to a size 1 and I didn’t
even want to live to enjoy the clothes.
2003 was already going down as my worst year on record: my father died, my mother had a debilitating stroke, and my acting
career tanked in New York (so I raced back to my native Los Angeles, only to watch it expire there as well). This happened
just as my four best friends in New York got their big acting breaks—one was even cast in a hit TV show in LA, created by
my very own high school sweetheart. And who says God isn’t in the details?
The details got even worse. Those four suddenly successful friends got married that summer, just as my almost-fiancé and I
broke up. For three years, Jack told me I was “The One.” A week after our breakup, Jack decided I had just been his first
big relationship. You know, Trainer Girlfriend.
So on that oppressive July day, I flew my broken heart back to New York to attend those four weddings and vacate my apartment
for good. (When Jack and I broke up, he got custody of New York.)
And that’s when a friend from church called—let’s call her Martha. She figured she’d come “be Jesus” to me: coax me out of
my apartment, now a tomb of memories of Jack, and get me out for a stroll in Central Park, where the sun was shining and life
was still being lived.
As Martha and I meandered those miles of summer greens and happy visitors, I actually began to feel better. I had a life before
Jack tore my heart out; I could have a life again. In fact, I guessed the Lord must be in New York City. After all, children
were still playing, dogs were still peeing, and lovers were still wooing. Just like that couple I saw French-kissing at the
pretzel cart. Someday, that could be me.
Wait. That
used to be
me.
The guy making out at the pretzel cart was Jack.
My
Jack.
They say when you die you float out of your body. I wanted to float. I wanted to rip my skin off just to escape. But I was
stuck in my body, watching Jack stick his tongue down some woman’s throat as the adrenaline ripped my heart open like a dirty
bomb.
“Praise God,” Martha whispered. “The Lord is showing you that Jack’s moved on.”
In a park six miles around, in a city of more than eight million people—a city I didn’t even live in anymore! How did God
do it? And why?
An hour later at that café, I managed to speak without sobbing. “No, Martha. God isn’t showing me
Jack
moved on; God’s showing me
he’s
moved on. I feel like God has abandoned me.”
“And you don’t have anything to do with it?” Martha retorted.
Be careful to whom you bare your grief, especially if it’s someone churchy, like Martha. Because the Marthas of the world
can’t leave a question unanswered, a problem unsolved, or a sorrow unhealed; they have to fix it. And no matter how long you’ve
been a Christian (I’d been one all my life), Martha will know a Bible verse you haven’t heard (or haven’t heard the right
way), or she’ll have a book or a sermon tape or a worship CD designed to answer your questions, silence your doubts, muzzle
your grief, and make
Martha
feel better.
But then when your pain doesn’t go away—when it feels like your intestines are being ripped out and God has abandoned you,
or worse: he’s there but he doesn’t care—when you realize that God himself has orchestrated your collapse-then Martha will
wish she hadn’t come to be Jesus to you, because now she’s stuck in some crappy midtown café listening to your horrifying
thoughts about God—the kind of thoughts she successfully dodges in the midst of her everyday life. But you’re not in everyday
life. You’re in hell.
“I know God is good, Martha. He’s just not good
to me.
“
