Angry Conversations with God

by Susan E. Isaacs

  I’d always loved movies. I applied to UCLA’s film school. It was a long shot, but I had to get out of UC Irvine’s beige purgatory. One of Nancy’s Christian rock songs said that if I did my best, God would take care of the rest. I got into UCLA. This prayer thing worked!

  Film school was a blast. I loved writing scripts; I loved editing. I discovered new notes to play. Grad students asked me to act in their thesis projects so I played the acting note too. Yes, there were geeks doing Star Wars takeoffs with toasters. There were Goth lesbian performance artists diving deep into their own cesspool dreams and making art out of it. It wasn’t my kind of art, but it was art. And I wanted to make art.

  “I’m so disappointed you’re a Christian,” a film-school friend said. “You’re too smart and cool for that.”

  “Christians can be cool and smart!” I was lying. I hadn’t met any cool, smart Christians yet. I met some of those Crusaders who passed out tracts. I met a Christian cheerleader, but no Christian artists. Church was packed with cheerleaders. Film school was packed with Goth lesbians from Silver Lake. I didn’t fit anywhere. Too wild for the church, too tame for the world. It was art versus faith all over again.

  I had to find a way to play my faith note and my art note. Actually, I was playing several artistic notes. Which one was I supposed to play? God had a will for my life. But what was it?

  Two weeks before graduation I visited my sister’s church. The pastor had us write letters to God and said he’d mail them back to us in three months so we could see how God answered our prayers. I wrote mine:

  Dear God, what am I supposed to do? Please don’t make me turn into a Goth lesbian just to do art or a Crusader cheerleader just to keep my faith. Just show me what your will is, and I’ll do it. Whatever it is. Well, except no bad Christian drama. Please, I beg you—don’t make me write a dorky Bible skit. Other than that, just show me your will.

  Two days later, Mrs. Van Holt called my parents. My old Shakespeare coach was directing TV and wondered if I wanted to audition for Family Ties.

  Two days after that, I was on a soundstage at Paramount Studios with a guest-starring role on Family Ties, my SAG card, and an agent. Even my dad came to the taping. I was overwhelmed. God blessed me with work, and even my father’s approval. I prayed to keep doing my best. I knew he’d take care of the rest.

  Rudy: I became a Christian when Bob Dylan did. We were going to change the world. And Jesus was going to come back in like 1985.

  Susan: It’s always great at the beginning. God’s answers to all my questions at first were “yes and amen.”

  Rudy: Your prayer to God was a little odd. “God, I know I’ve been a jerk and you hate me; now I’m going to do everything right so you’ll love me.” Did you really think God hated you? Did you think you had to be perfect to get him to love you?

  Susan: I remember once Pastor Ingebretsen said that when God looked at me, he didn’t see me or my sin because Jesus stood in front of me. Which kind of turned Jesus into a Teflon shield. I worried if Jesus stepped out of the way, I’d be toast.

  Rudy: Let’s ask them. Lord?

  Jesus: I’m not a Teflon shield. Let’s put that to rest.

  God: I hate sin because of the way it destroys people. I hated watching Susan’s life unravel before she had a chance to live it.

  Susan: I didn’t really think you hated me. (Not yet, anyway.)

  Rudy: Susan, let’s focus on the good things for now. This was a great time in your relationship. The marriage, the honeymoon! Why don’t you tell each other what you appreciated about this period?

  Jesus: I loved how much time we spent together.

  Susan: I loved feeling hopeful. I loved making God happy.

  God: I appreciated that she asked for direction on everything. Of course, then she went overboard. “Lord, show me what to eat for breakfast“?

  Rudy: Did you ever tell her what to eat for breakfast?

  God: Yeah. “More!”

  Susan: Go ahead and make fun of me. But I didn’t have any direction growing up, except “Don’t be angry or people won’t like you.” My parents never showed me how to choose a college or resolve conflict or how to live in the world. Is it any wonder I hid in my room, begging you to tell me what to do?!

  God: I never told you to eat grapefruit every day of your life!

  Jesus: Susan, we understood: you were scared; you got caught up trying to do it perfectly; it was going take some time before you relaxed.

  God: In the meantime, I was happy to use the foghorn school of direction on you. Of course, eventually you had to grow up and learn more subtle forms of guidance.

  Susan: What’s subtle about blowtorching my career, love life, and sense of purpose all at once?

  Rudy: Don’t jump ahead of the story.

  Susan: It’s impossible not to jump ahead. How can I think happily on all the promises he had for me when I know how they turned out?

  God: I had lots of great plans for you, Susan. I was excited about your future. But a promise is not a guarantee. You have to hold up your end of the bargain for a promise to work.

  Susan: So I do have to be perfect? I’m never going to be perfect. Why bother making me a promise at all?

  Jesus: Susan, your future isn’t over.

  Susan: It’s hard to see that right now. (To Rudy) I feel more confused than ever. I’m letting God speak. But how much of my idea of God is real?

  Rudy: I don’t think you’d have gotten this far without some of it being real. You’ve just got to figure out what’s real and what isn’t. Like separating the wheat from the tares.

  Susan: Or more like Psyche, sifting through every single grain of wheat or corn or dust. It’s exhausting.

  Rudy: I know. But it’s going to be more exhausting if you don’t.

  Chapter 6

  THE HOKEY POKEY FOR OAKIES

  I WAS A WORKING ACTRESS! DAVID CALLED FROM YALE TO CONgratulate me. Even my father was proud. (Now that I’d had a success.) My film-school friends were not so excited. Didn’t I want to schlep coffee for big-time producers like they were doing? They didn’t get it: nobody just walks onto a movie lot with a SAG card, an agent, and a guest-starring role on a hit TV show.

  The following week, I was looking for the next gig and they were still schlepping coffee for big-time producers. Their questions stuck in my craw. What if I had made the wrong decision? Yes, I could act. But I could also write. Maybe the door opening wasn’t a sign from God—maybe it was a trap from Satan.

  There it was again: that paralyzing dread and self-doubt that left me unable to go forward with confidence or turn back and be at peace, unable to say no or even to say yes. How did my friends make decisions? Julianne tried to be a writer, then gave up and went to law school. David was driven by doubt, but doubt drove him forward. Why did my doubts paralyze me? Maybe it was my father’s endless rants about God zapping him for every false move; maybe it was my mother’s sad, silent retreat into church life. I needed guidance. I needed a church. I also needed help with my secret.…

  I couldn’t call myself a “real” anorexic. I had ballooned back to 105 pounds: normal for Hollywood. But on the path to becoming a “normal” anorexic, I stumbled into a brand-new disease they had mentioned in that psychobiology class: bulimia.

  I first started bingeing in high school after I got sexually active. Food quelled my guilt and insecurity. Sex, binge, numb out to forget. Sex, binge, forget. But when I turned my life over to God, I starved that greedy slut to death! Problem was: humans, as a rule, need to eat to survive. Eventually I ate. A lot. Once I ate so much I got sick and vomited. Well, hey now: vomiting got rid of the calories, released my anxiety, and provided a psychic punishment. I started a new cycle: starve, binge, vomit, repent. Repeat. I hated myself every time I did it.

  “God, please forgive me. I’m wasting food, I’m hurting my body—your temple! You didn’t save me so I could destroy my self. I promise to never do it again! In Jesus’ name, amen.”


  Like that ever worked.

  I prayed for God to direct me toward help. I visited the UCLA health center. The counselor said everyone with an eating disorder had been sexually abused.

  “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.r />
  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 LORD was my support. He brought me out into a spacious place; he rescued me because he delighted in me. (vv. 16-19)