Angry Conversations with God (32 page)

“But I’m still in the middle of it. I don’t think this story will end until I’m dead.”

“Then you’re a journalist, Susan. You’re a journalist in a foreign country. I’m totally secular; I’ve never been to your God
world. But when you keep telling me your story, I get a glimpse of it. I want to go on that journey with you. Trust your story.”

I kept telling the same God story. Andrea asked me to tell it at a benefit for a gay-lesbian teen organization she started.
We went out and read our stories at Hollywood venues. I got over myself. Who cared if I was the middle-class white girl with
the God complex? I was just a journalist, reporting what it was like in my trench. And everywhere I went, I met people who,
regardless of their religious beliefs, were looking for the same things: a connection to God, a desire to mean something,
and a way to stay alive even when dreams die. Old Georgina was right. I got to stand before kings and princes. They were kings
and princes to me.

Why had I spent so much time whining that I wasn’t getting to play my note? I was playing my note now. God was playing through
me.

A new sense of freedom was born into my life. A dark, beautiful freedom that came when everything was swept away and I was
still there. I was still alive. If I never found the right man, that couldn’t stop me from cultivating a life filled with
love. If I never got married, that didn’t mean I had to be alone. If I never got to make a living doing what I loved, I’d
still do it—for fun and for free.

Rudy: Maybe God allows you to go through suffering so you can help others when they go through the same suffering.

Susan: I’ve got an idea. How about if none of us have to go through it? They won’t go through it, so I don’t have to go through
it first to show them the way?

Rudy: Then you’d be childish and shallow, don’t you think? Suffering seems to be the best teacher. And be honest with yourself:
you’ve changed. You’re not the same person you were when you first came in here.

Susan: No, I was ten pounds lighter and I didn’t want to live.

Rudy: So admit it. You’re a much finer soul having gone through it.

Susan: Maybe you’re right. Maybe it
is
better to have gone through it and changed than not to suffer and to stay shallow.

Rudy: You get to go to the top of the mountain! You can’t climb Mount Everest without serious training. Or would you rather
sit in the desert flats, just looking at the peaks?

I BEGAN MY COUPLES COUNSELING WITH GOD IN THE FALL OF
2003. A year later, God walked out. It took me nearly six months of further counseling, but in the spring of 2005, I walked
back into Rudy’s office with my decision.

Susan: I’ve thought a lot about the cost. I’ve come to a decision. I want a divorce.

Rudy was taken aback for a moment.

Susan: I can’t ask the real God back until I’ve divorced my old gods: the drill-sergeant Father, the wimpy Jesus, the drive-by
Holy Spirit. They’re not real anyway.

Rudy: You realize you’ll have to accept the real God on God’s terms?

Susan: Yes. I’ll have to love him for himself, not for his money or what he can do for me.

Rudy: You know, most married couples hit a stage of profound disillusionment. Most of them quit. But the ones who work through
it reach a whole new level of love. And I think you’re going to have that.

Susan: Okay, then, divorce me. But wait!

Rudy: What?

Susan: I just had this horrible vision of God “blessing” me with another life-torching hardship.

Rudy: Stop it! That’s no second-honeymoon gift…But if he does bring another hardship your way, it will be for a good reason,
and you’ll know the reason. Right? Stop cringing!

Susan: Okay. Let’s do this.

Rudy prayed over me. He prayed that I would let go of the old gods and allow room for the real God. He prayed that when the
exes came knocking at my door (and they would, because they don’t give up easily), I’d recognize them for who they were: ciphers
of my old distorted imagination. And then he prayed that I would learn to recognize the real God. That I would trust him.

Rudy: By the power vested in me by the state of grace, you are officially divorced from your wimpy jackass fake gods.

I sat still for a moment.

Rudy: That’s okay. Just take a moment; then ask him back.

I’d been on a few silent retreats where you don’t talk all weekend. The first couple of hours were always torture. But by
the end, I found so much beauty in the silence that I hated breaking it with words. (Although I got over it.) That’s how I
felt now. Sure, I’d cried to God alone; I’d even sensed his anger or sorrow. And then I’d heard him speak my name. I didn’t
want to sully the moment with my own imaginings. Yet I had to take the risk. After all, it was when I dared to imagine that
I sensed God enjoying me.

An image came to my mind: I was walking along the bluffs toward the beach. There were flowers along the path, but the sky
was in shadow, the flowers were muted, like there was a severe solar eclipse. I kept walking toward the beach and, I guessed,
toward God? Soon I walked past the line where the eclipse ended. Everything beyond was full of light and color: not some fake,
Thomas Kinkade neon, but real color, real light. Real water. And there, on the beach, stood my husband. My Maker. The Lover
of my soul.

Rudy didn’t know why I was crying. But I could see them—the Trinity. I could feel their embrace, all three of them. Don’t
ask me what they looked like. I wasn’t looking. You only need to see blue once to know what blue looks like.

Arise, my darling, my beautiful one, and come with me.

See! The winter is past; the rains are over and gone.

Flowers appear on the earth; the season of singing has come. (Song of Songs 2:10-12)

A short time later I spoke with Rudy again.

Susan: I wonder if the real God is dull and boring.

Rudy: What do you mean? Take a look at the world. Take a look at your life. What on earth could be boring in God’s universe?

Susan: Well, I kind of liked God being snarky. I think I’ll miss that about him.

Then I heard it. You know, in my mind.

God: Come on, Susan. You know me. Sarcasm is a viable form of communication.

A lot has happened since I ended my sessions with Rudy. I got new agents. I booked a couple of TV jobs and commercials. Not
enough to make a living, but I wasn’t expecting that anymore. I was just happy to be there. Funny how you enjoy things when
you learn to do them for fun and for free.

My exes come back to harass me now and then. The drillsergeant Father, the wimpy Jesus. But I have the Holy Spirit to remind
me that I’m not married to them anymore. I’ve grown to appreciate that drive-by Holy Spirit. In fact, Jesus was right: the
Spirit is like the wind: you can’t see him; you can only see what he does. I think he was the one who never left me, even
through my Dark Night of the Soul.

I taped my old crayon drawing to my wall where I could see it. There stood the torso, naked and new. There it was again, chained
by its mistakes. There came the fire that burned it up until there was nothing left but dry bones. And there was the skeleton,
standing ready. “Hey, what’s up?”

“Sovereign Lord, only you know.”

God put me on a barbecue spit and burned off every bit of diseased flesh until there was nothing left but dry bones. Now he
is putting new flesh and new breath back into me. What’s next? Only God knows. I do know this: God torched my life, and it’s
the best thing that ever happened to me. But I don’t like to say that too often. You know, in case he gets any snarky ideas.

“What is the climactic moment of your story?” Terrie asked me in class.

“The climactic moment is: Am I going to trust God when there is nothing else? Will I go up to the top of the mountain even
if there’s no trail?”

“So are you going to go up the mountain?” Andrea asked.

“I have to! I’d rather die on the mountain than lie around in Death Valley.”

“How will you know it’s God when you see him?”

“I’ll know him from every dream I’ve dreamed, every conversation I’ve imagined. I’ll know him by every longing for love or
rumor of beauty; it will be there right on his face.”

“How do you know you’ll get there?”

“Because there’s nowhere else I want to go.”

Though the fig tree does not bud and there are no grapes on the vines, though the olive crop fails and the fields produce
no food, though there are no sheep in the pen and no cattle in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in the L
ORD
, I will be joyful in God my Savior. The Sovereign L
ORD
is my strength; he makes my feet like the feet of a deer, he enables me to go on the heights. (Hab. 3:17-19)

A YEAR AFTER RUDY AND I FINISHED OUR LAST SESSION I CALLED
him, nervous.

Susan: I need to see you for marriage counseling.

Rudy: I’m sorry. Are you and God fighting again?

Susan: No. We’re doing great! I need
premarital
counseling. I’m engaged! Larry’s a writer like me. He loves the Beatles like me. And best of all, he’s been on God’s barbecue
spit, and he came out with a faith that’s stronger than it was before he got torched. He’s perfect for me!

Rudy: Do you love him more than God?

Susan: Oh, no. Larry’s great. But he’s just a guy.

Rudy: You sound like you’re in good shape.

Susan: You know what’s weird? We haven’t had a single argument in six months.

Rudy: You’d better get your butts in here.

SUSAN ISAACS IS A WRITER AND PERFORMER WITH CREDITS IN
TV, film, stage, and radio, including
Seinfeld, My Name Is Earl, Scrooged, Planes, Trains&Automobiles,
and others. She has an MFA in screenwriting from the University of Southern California and is an alumnus of the Groundlings
Sunday Company.

Susan has read her essays on radio’s
Weekend America
and is a contributing writer to Donald Miller’s Burnside Writers Collective (
www.burnsidewriterscollective.com
). She also wrote DirecTV’s
Songs of Praise
specials, hosted by NASCAR champ Darrell Waltrip.

Susan has performed her original material at the Comedy Central Stage and the Upright Citizens Brigade Theater. She teaches
screenwriting for the Act One Program in Hollywood. She even did a Pakistani accent voice-over for a Deloitte&-Touche training
video.

Yet despite all those accomplishments, Susan managed to screw up every lucky break she ever had. But why would you want to
read a memoir about someone who got everything they ever wanted in life? How boring. Susan’s story is proof positive that
God still works with our lamebrain mistakes. Case in point: Susan is now ecstatically married to writer Larry Wilson and living
in a real house.

If you’d like to learn more about Susan, visit her Web site:
www.susanisaacs.net
and blog:
http://susanisaacs.blogspot.com
.