Angry Conversations with God (11 page)

“Is your childhood a blank?”

“No. I remember getting my picture taken on a donkey when I was thirteen months old.”

“Were your parents ever sexually inappropriate?”

“Yeah. They were shut down emotionally.”

“Family members, friends, teachers?” she probed.

“No.”

“Well, you were sexually abused somewhere.”

“It’s called dating.”

“I meant
inappropriate
sexual contact.”

“What’s appropriate about having sex before you have a secure sense of yourself, getting enmeshed with some equally insecure
guy, then breaking up and getting your heart shredded? Doesn’t that count as abuse?”

“That’s not abuse. That’s exploration.”

What-EVER. “Please, Lord,” I prayed. “I’ve got to find a church. And I’ve got to find a way to stop!”

I visited a Bible study and met a gal with whom I had a lot in common. We were serious about God. We went jogging together,
sharing what we’d read in the Bible. We both liked to fast and pray. I liked fasting because it took my mind off the world.
She liked fasting because it got her away from food, which was a problem. She was bulimic, she whispered. Oh my gosh, I wasn’t
the only one! But she hadn’t thrown up in four months. How did she stop? I asked. She didn’t; her church counselor stopped
her. Praise the Lord. A church and a counselor. Two prayers answered.

Veronique attended a ten-thousand-member church in the Pentecostal tradition: old-time religion, tent revivals, speaking in
tongues—that kind of highbrow intellectualism. Veronique assured me it was legit: the pastor had his own radio show and was
a guest on TBN. “He’s on fire for Jesus.”

When I went, I expected to see a bunch of geezers in Arnold Palmer slacks and fat grandmas in muumuus. And I did. But I also
saw celebrities: a disco star, some actor from
The Love Boat,
a teen starlet from an ABC kids’ show. I figured that church must be doing something right.

An usher herded me into a spare seat. They had to pack them in, the place was so popular. A turbo organ played a juiced-up
hymn, and the audience revved up. Finally, the worship leader leaped onto the stage and began to sing very, very loudly:

I COME TO THE GARDEN ALONE! WHILE THE DEW IS STILL ON THE ROSES!

This was my mother’s favorite Communion song! Of course, it sounded different with a power organ and six thousand people shouting
it, but I joined in.

AND HE WALKS WITH ME, AND HE TALKS WITH ME! AND HE TELLS ME I AM HIS OWN!

“Let’s give God a standing ovation!” the worship director yelled, and the audience tore the roof off.
Well,
I thought,
if anyone deserves a standing ovation, it’s the Lord.
We screamed at rock concerts—why not whoop it up for the Creator of the universe?
By the end of the service, they had me. We were driving back the darkness with a rebel yell. I came back the following week.
And the next.

Pastor Gilbert was nothing like the Christmas elf. He may have looked like Big Bird, but he had cojones. He spoke with authority.
I still remember one of his first sermons because I saved the bulletin. “You are at a pivotal time,” Pastor Gil declared,
“wherein the decisions you make could determine the course of your life. You may think it’s a small thing God is asking of
you. But“—his voice crescendoed—“if you cannot run with the footmen, how can you keep up with the chariots?!” The organ warbled
in the background. “God wants to prepare you for the perfect purpose of your life. Are you going to play?”

Pastor Gil declared that the next month would be Pivot Month. The church would fast, pray, and prepare for God’s purposes
in our lives. “If you are prepared for God’s purposes, then turn to the person next to you and say, ‘I’m prepared to pivot
toward God’s perfect purpose!’” We giggled and turned and parroted his words.

Pastor Gilbert had more than plans—he had a specific program: prayer calendars, vigils, midweek sermons, and verses to memorize,
like “Call to Me, and I will answer you, and show you great and mighty things, which you do not know” (Jer. 33:3
NKJV
). Stand here; sit there; shout amen. Turn to the person next to you and repeat.…It was the Hokey Pokey for Oakies.

And I loved it.

What on earth drove an outsider artist to a church where they told you what to say and when?
The rules.
Check out the self-help section at the bookstore. It’s crammed with rules for everything from dating to color coordination
to feng shui—they’ve got a rule on where you should put your couch in a room. And people do it. Because people love rules.
And I was one of those people.

I got two bits of parental “wisdom” growing up: “You never should have skipped half-day kindergarten,” and “If you’re angry,
people won’t like you.” Well, yes. I
was
angry—because my parents never taught me the rules! I didn’t know how to navigate life. But praise the Lord, Pastor Gil had
a map! He grabbed the helm and invited me to go along. I wanted to see the great and mighty things that the world did not
know. So what if I had to follow some rules? I needed structure. The acting business was precarious, and my eating disorder
was out of control. I needed a map. I needed Pastor Gil’s rules. I also needed to call that counselor.

Georgina Chalk wasn’t a licensed therapist; she was trained as a church lay counselor. She didn’t use therapy; she used the
Bible. On my first visit I told her about my eating disorder. She responded sternly: “Susan, you are very angry.”

“I know. And that means people won’t like me. I don’t like me. I hate myself for what I’m doing to my body.”

“You’d better deal with it or God cannot use you. Ever. You’ll never be a successful actress. God will not allow you to be
in a position of authority. He can’t bless you with a husband or children or financial success until you deal with your rage.”

Rage? Did I have rage? I’d do anything to not be like Dad! Georgina spoke with the same authority as Pastor Gil. She must
be right. She also said I could get better. I could have the victorious life God promised. But I had to come to counseling
twice a week. I had to complete homework assignments. I had to make a list of the food I ate every day. (That was easy: the
Scarsdale diet, plus the food I binged and vomited. Only now I would never binge since she was going to look at the list.)
I had to show her my finances once a month. Never mind that I didn’t have problems with money. She said God couldn’t bless
my finances if I wasn’t accountable with them.

I did everything she said. I made lists of what I was angry and hurt about. And she made me forgive.

I wrote down the negative things I believed about myself, repeated them to her, and she recited Bible verses to counter them.
When I said, “I’m ugly and damaged,” Georgina replied, “You are fearfully and wonderfully made” (from Ps. 139:14).

I said, “I’m broken and sinful.
“
Georgina replied, “The Lord has washed your sins white as snow” (from Isa. 1:18).

I said, “I’m angry, so no one will ever like me.” Georgina replied,
“
The Lord will quiet you with his love and rejoice over you with singing” (from Zeph. 3:17).

I said I shouldn’t have skipped half-day kindergarten. Georgina replied,
“
The Lord will make you stand before kings and princes” (from Matt. 10:18).

I said, “Huh?”

She replied: “When you get the sin cleaned out of your life, then God will put you in a position of influence.”

Georgina looked over my lists of food. She checked my finances. She took my lists of false beliefs and burned them in the
fireplace. She berated me for being hard on myself. Every time I did something right, she smiled. “Good girl!”

And you know what? I started to feel better. I stopped vomiting. I started sleeping at night and woke up feeling hopeful.
I went to church hungry for God rather than food. I met lots of new friends who were excited about what God was doing in their
lives. I liked them; they were happy. All the time.

I must have gotten enough sin in my life for God to have me “stand before kings and princes” because I started working like
gangbusters. I booked commercials; I got cast in a play at a prestigious regional theater. I booked better roles. I got a
guest-starring role on a TV show playing a high schooler (the fact that I looked like a skinny teenager paid off!). I invited
one of the actors to church with me. She said yes, and two months later she accepted the Lord. It was crazy. But I was crazy.
I was crazy-on-fire, gettin’ the sin out of my life, rollin’ with Jesus, y’all!

Then I got cast in a huge movie:
Planes, Trains & Automobiles,
playing John Candy’s wife! Okay, so I was only his wife in a picture. But I sent Mr. Candy letters on the set and he loved
them. They brought me in and we filmed scenes together. It was just me and John Candy, improvising. Casting directors called
after that, knowing I could improvise on cue. I was hired on
Scrooged.
There were half a dozen people in the scene, and everyone was an insider: Bill Murray, his brothers, the screenwriter, his
girlfriend. And, me.
How’d I get here?
I’d been cleaning the sin out of my life. “The Lord will make you stand before kings and princes.”

I sang to God on the way to work. “I don’t care about kings and princes; I’m just glad to be here, playing my note.” My mind
went to Psalm 18, which Pastor Gil had had us memorize:

He reached down from on high and took hold of me; he drew me out of deep waters. He rescued me from my powerful enemy, from
my foes, who were too strong for me. They confronted me in the day of my disaster, but the L
ORD
was my support. He brought me out into a spacious place; he rescued me because he delighted in me. (vv. 16-19)

Now that I had Pastor Gil for a spiritual father, I could let my own dad off the hook a little. Throughout childhood, Dad’s
rants sent me off to a corner to hide or seethe. Now I just felt bad for him. Maybe I could help him. Why did Dad think God
had it out for him? I knew we never moved from our house because Dad lost too much money in a stock-market crash. I finally
pressed him about it. “Two days before the crash”—Dad sighed—“me and some guys from work…we went to a stag film.”

“Dad, I don’t think God would crash the
entire
stock market just to punish
you.
“

He wasn’t listening. To him it was all orchestrated. “We couldn’t leave this house. But I had promised your mother we would,
and she never forgave me. I bought that extra practice in the mall—that failed. Everything failed.” My father saw his life
as a stack of dominoes God had toppled in retribution.
For a stag film?

“Dad, you have a beautiful, kind wife. You have four intelligent children.”

“I shouldn’t have forced Rob into med school!” Dad blurted. “I was lying in bed thinking,
I’ll tell him tomorrow.
…” Dad’s voice cracked. I’d never seen him cry.

“Well, I love you.” I don’t know if he heard. I don’t know that it mattered.

“What is the deepest desire of your heart?” Pastor Gil asked the congregation. (We were in the middle of Vision Month.) “I
want you to think of your deepest longing and hope, the hope you dare not tell anyone out loud, even yourself, because it’s
so precious and fragile.…Dare to dream of your deepest desire. Now turn to the complete stranger next to you and tell him.”