Angry Conversations with God

by Susan E. Isaacs

  A weight lifted off my chest. The kick in the gut was gone. My own dear mother understood! I went back to Jack’s that night and laid down the law: sexual intimacy would be hard for me. It would bring up issues about nesting and faith and our future. I might have a freak-out and need to take a step back, and he would have to be patient. Otherwise, it was over.

  Jack promised he could deal with that. And so we went forward. It felt wonderful to be loved. The next morning the kick in my gut was back. And it was never going away. Was it because I was afraid of being known? Was it because sex outside of marriage kicks you in the gut and is destructive? Or was it simply this: we live in a fallen world, and it sucks?

  Rudy: We’re not meant to be single and forty. We’re not meant to be single and thirty.

  Susan: Are you saying what I did was okay?

  Rudy: I’m saying I understand.

  Susan: I pay you to understand, Rudy. But does God understand? I got sexually involved again. And it wasn’t out of some furtive adolescent need. It wasn’t out of a drunken angry payback.

  Rudy: Then why did you?

  Susan: I was single and forty! I thought I was making a mature decision based on reality. There were far more women in the church than men, and those men didn’t get me. Ergo, I wasn’t going to find a man in church. Jack was a great guy. He loved me and wanted to marry me.

  Rudy: Did you want to marry him?

  Susan: We’ll get to that in the next session.

  Rudy: So let’s ask the Lord how he felt.

  Susan: I already know how you feel, God. I felt it in my gut.

  God: Susan, I understand more than Rudy or you do. I made you for a relationship. But sex was never going to not be a big deal for you.

  Susan: My secular friends didn’t think it was a big deal. How come they got away with it?

  God: Is that what you want, Susan? To get away with it? I’ve given you a sensitive heart. It’s why you’re creative. It’s why you see a deeper reality in life. That’s a gift. You treat it like a liability.

  Susan: It is a liability when I’ve been single this long.

  God: I don’t have a problem with sex. I invented it, didn’t I? I did not design the body to be celibate at forty. I also didn’t design you to be stuck in emotional adolescence into retirement.

  Susan: And therein lies the conflict.

  God: It’s your messed-up culture that has set up that conflict, not me. Please, go, have sex! Live out the Song of Solomon. Only do it married, with a Christian man who’s going to understand your whole heart.

  Susan: Those men weren’t available. They all read Kiss My Dating Ass Good-bye.

  God: You’ve forgotten Really Nice Guy.

  Susan: I didn’t forget him. He was too nice. He was too polite. He was too safe.

  God: No, he was too dangerous. He could have really known the deepest part of your heart—where I live—that Jack would never quite understand.

  Susan: What about all my friends whose spouses came to faith in you through their relationships?

  God: They were willing to wait. Jack wouldn’t wait. Didn’t your intuition cause you to feel uneasy about that?

  Susan: I wanted to be loved.

  God: So do I, Susan. I have loved you your whole life. I’ve never left you. Even when you wanted me to. I brought you out of despair. I dumped so many blessings into your life—you had nearly everything. Except one thing: a man. Don’t you think I knew that? Did you have no patience?

  Susan: No patience?! I was nearly forty years old.

  God: Well, as you said: you live in a fallen world and it sucks.

  Susan: You created this world.

  God: But I didn’t make it fall, Susan. I didn’t make it suck.

  The room was silent for a while.

  Rudy: God didn’t get snarky on you. Or if it was Jesus, he didn’t get wimpy on you. Who was that anyway, Jesus or God?

  Susan: Actually, I’m not sure. They’re sounding so much alike now.

  Rudy: Good! I think you know the real God more than you give yourself credit for. Or at least, you’re allowing him to speak. You’re making progress.

  Susan: Well, God is anyway. I’m not so sure about me.

  Chapter 13

  A FATHER’S VALEDICTION

  WHEN MY FRIEND CLEO WAS TWELVE YEARS OLD, HER FATHER HAD a heart attack. She was sitting in homeroom when her mother’s chalk-white face appeared at the door. By the time they got home, Cleo’s father was dead. She never had a chance to say good-bye. She didn’t even have a chance to hate him as a teenager or forgive him as an adult. Her father was gone before he’d become human.

  I had time to prepare for my father’s death. His childhood polio slowly robbed him of his motor skills, his strength, and eventually his life. Two weeks be-fore his seventy-ninth birthday, my sister called. I thought she was calling to plan a party. “You’d better come now,” Nancy said, “or you’ll be here to plan a funeral.”

  By the time I got home, my father had been moved to a convalescent home. The TV sat on his dresser, Sleepless in Seattle still in the VCR. A case of Ensure sat next to the door. Mom wanted to take it to the hospital so Dad could regain his strength. “That way he can come home on weekends.” All those years she’d been praying for some independence; now she wanted to put it off.

  I guess Dad was preparing for his death as well. In his final months, Mom’s church friends came to sit with him while she got out for a rare cup of coffee. And Dad asked them lots of questions. “Tell me about Jesus. Can he forgive me? Can my children forgive me? Can I go to heaven this late?”

  “He asks them,” Mom said. “He never asks me.”

  “He never asked me ei-ther,” I replied. “Have you called Rob?” My father and brother hadn’t spoken in a long time.

  “Rob can’t come.” She turned away from me.

  I wondered what I could say to my father that would matter to him. I’d forgiven him, grieved over the relationship we didn’t have, and come to accept who he was. I even made a list of things I appreciated about him. Maybe I needed to read him that list.

  Nancy and I drove to the convalescent home, passing the Sears store where Dad once had his practice. The deco green neon sign had long since been replaced by a squatty eighties graphic. Nancy laughed. “Remember the candy and nut counter with the warming lights? Remember Dad sending us to get him candy orange slices?”

  “Yes!” I replied. “Remember the air conditioners with the red plastic fringes taped to the vent so you could see the air blowing?”

  “Remember Dad’s office and that giant plastic eye with the removable parts?”

  “And his test for color blindness?” I added.

  “And those notes you wrote him that he taped to the wall?” Nancy asked.

  “What notes?”

  “Those cartoons you drew. The one with the smashed glasses asking, ‘Is your vision blurry?’ He had that one framed.”

  Now I remembered. I wondered what had happened to it.

  Dad was propped up in a hospital bed when we got there. His body looked so small, and his eyes were sunken in. “Hi, Daddy,” I said. He lifted his eyebrows in hello. He moved his mouth but no sound came out. I sat in a chair next to his bed and took his hand.

  Mom and Jim showed up, and the four of us visited for a few hours. I talked about New York; Nancy talked about her children. He listened steadily. Dad had rarely focused on us before; his mind was usually trapped in the past, trying to rewrite history. Today his eyes were clinging to the here and now, perhaps to avoid tomorrow.

  Visiting hours came to a close. I promised him I would be back tomorrow. “Promise me you’ll be here too, Dad.” He raised his eyebrows again, I think to smile.

  The following day I returned to the convalescent hospital. The hospice nurse met me outside my father’s closed door: Dad was no longer eating. It was hospice policy not to prolong his life. Was anyone else coming? she asked. I thought of my brother. I shook my head no. She handed the ca
ns of Ensure back to me.

  Dad was dozing when I went in. He stirred when I sat next to his bed. His lips tried to smile. I showed him a newspaper, but his eyes went to the Bible in my hand.

  “Would you like me to read it?” I asked.

  He nodded. I read from Romans—how there was no more condemnation for Dad if he belonged to Jesus. The Spirit would free him from the power of sin and death. I read much of 1 John—how if we confess our sins, God will forgive us. And I read, “See how very much our Father loves us, for he calls us his children, and that is what we are!” (3:3 NLT).

  Dad opened his mouth, but he didn’t have much volume, so I moved closer.

  “How do you get back on track?” he whispered.

  “You mean, get back on track with God?” I replied. He nodded yes. “Oh, Dad, we can never get back on track. No human can ever get himself on track, no matter how good he is. That’s why we need Jesus. Jesus gets us back on track. Have you asked Jesus to forgive you? Have you asked him to come into your life?”

  He nodded yes. I took his hand. “Then, Dad, you are on track. You are forgiven. And you don’t have to worry about where you’re going.”

  His mouth turned up. I didn’t know if this would be the last time I’d find him awake so I said, “Dad, you know, you’ve done a lot of things that hurt me. But I forgive you. I’ve done a lot of things that hurt you too. I am sorry. Will you forgive me?” He lay there watching me until he realized I was waiting for an answer. He nodded again.

  “But Dad, you did a lot of good things too. Remember all those nights I waited for the Sears sign to come on? My life lit up when you got home. Remember all those family vacations you took us on? And taking us to play miniature golf? And taking the dogs on walks. And watching movies together?” He kept watching me, waiting for the next words out of my mouth.

  “Do you remember the time you rescued Fuzzy? You were my hero that day. Remember the time I almost got that TV show? You stood out on the driveway, waiting for me to get home. You just stood there and hugged me and let me cry. That meant as much to me as all the times you were happy for my successes.”

  My father turned his palm upward. I put my hand in his and squeezed.

  “You’re a great girl,” he whispered.

  Those were the words I’d waited a lifetime to hear.

  The next day a storm blew through and washed away the haze and smog. Clouds skated east along a piercing blue sky. I remembered that Sunday school song about Stephen the martyr who looked up in the clouds and saw Jesus waiting for him.

  The hospice nurse said my father hadn’t been conscious for several hours. His body was shutting down. I called Mom and told her to come. When I went into Dad’s room, his breathing was labored, the gasps shallow. But he was still there.

  “Dad?” I sat on a chair and leaned over his ear. “Daddy, it’s okay. You can go now. I’m going to miss you so much. But you are forgiven, Dad. You’re on track now. Jesus is your track. He’s waiting for you. Don’t be afraid. Go where there is no more sickness in your body, where there’s no more fear and no more regret. It’s okay, Dad. I love you.” And then I softly sang the song in his ear:

  I see Jesus standing at the Father’s right hand,

  I see Jesus over in the promised land;

  Work is over, now I’m coming to thee,

  I see Jesus standing waiting for me.

  Less than an hour later, my father died.

  A week after I returned to New York, I was out jogging in the neighborhood. I passed a convenience store where a stock clerk was unloading a delivery. There on the sidewalk sat a pallet of Ensure. I broke down and wept.

  Rudy: There was a lot of grace for your father.

  Susan: I understand that parable better. There was this landowner who paid some laborers to work for the day. Then a worker showed up for the last hour and got the same pay as those who’d worked all day. The all-day workers were mad. But the point wasn’t the time labored; the point was the gift. If I can just get it into my head that God has that same patience and generosity for me.…

  Rudy: What would your father say?

  Susan: He doesn’t need to speak. I’m happy just to sit and be thankful.

  Rudy: I mean your earthly father. If he could be here, what would he say?

  Susan: Maybe, “Don’t waste time fighting God. Don’t get to the end and have little to remember but regret and what might have been.”

  God: I do have something to say, Susan: “He who has been forgiven much loves much.” Your dad has so much love now. You’ll get to see that someday.

  Chapter 14

  MY OWN PRIVATE SEPTEMBER 11

  THE WEEKEND BEFORE SEPTEMBER 11, 2001, JACK AND I WENT ON vacation to Miami. We’d been dating for a year, so we decided to celebrate. We’d go somewhere new, lounge on a beach, watch Cuban men play dominoes…and we would stop arguing. Why were we arguing anyway when there was so much to love? Jack was talented and disciplined, he worked hard on his spiritual life, and he adored me. He was sure I was “The One.” Why wasn’t I sure he was? Well, there were just a few teensy issues. Like sex, friends, and the Lord.

  Issue #1: Sex. Even though Jack was totally committed to me, a year into our relationship, sex outside marriage still left me feeling exposed, like I was walking through a blizzard in a bikini. Jack had promised he’d be patient if I freaked out and needed to take a step back. But when I actually did ask to step back, he reacted as if I’d suggested we have a picnic at the morgue.

  “That’s weird, Susan. I can’t do that.”

  “Jack, when you leave, I feel like my insides have been cut out.”

  “But if you love someone, shouldn’t you feel bad when they leave?”

  “Not like someone stole a kidney. Can’t we try it for a few weeks?”

  “No. I’d just be waiting for those few weeks to be over, and I’d get resentful.”

  I could have broken up with him. But here’s something else they don’t tell you about in Sex Ed: oxytocin. It’s a chemical the brain releases during sex that bonds mammals together for life (well, prairie dogs stick it out for life anyway). It also makes the female protect her nest at all costs. After a forest fire, they’ll find a dead, charred mother bird sitting on a nest with live chicks underneath her. Now Jack and I were bonded. I put Jack’s love over my own needs. Or as Genesis 3:16 reads, “Your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you.” Or, as they say in therapy, “You’re codependent.”

  Issue #2: Friends. Jack and I had so much in common. We preferred indie films to blockbusters, Chinese takeout to expensive restaurants, and Dunkin’ Donuts coffee to Starbucks. It was great to have someone to do life with. But you can’t do life alone. You need friends. I included Jack’s friends in my life, but Jack didn’t reciprocate. Once Marty and Paula asked us out on a double date. Jack demurred, so we got Chinese takeout and watched Unforgiven on DVD. Then Bill was having a birthday party. “I’m not ready for a big group,” Jack replied. So we went to see Memento. I figured Jack needed time. But time passed. I realized Jack was comfortable in a group: his own.

  “That’s because I know my friends,” Jack defended himself.

  “If you hung out with my friends, you’d know them too.”

  “Susan, I only like groups of people I know. That’s what it means to be an introvert.”

  “No, that’s what it means to be controlling.”

  Issue #3: God. Jack was the most spiritually disciplined person I knew. He prayed and sought God’s will every day. When he was a jerk, he promptly admitted it. How many Christians did I know who were that thorough? Occasionally Jack joined me at church. But he wanted to sit in the back and leave immediately afterward. For me, what happened afterward was as important as the service.

  Sometimes it worked; he’d share something from his meditation books or I’d share something from the Bible. We’d nod, agree, and change the subject. Other times, it exploded. Once, I mentioned that I wanted to tithe and Jack flipp
ed out.

  “Pastors shouldn’t get paid; they just rip people off! My mom’s pastor drives a BMW.”

  “Everyone in your mom’s town drives a BMW. My pastor doesn’t even own a car.”

  “Nobody owns a car in New York,” he replied. “It doesn’t count.”

  “I’m not tithing your money.”

  “Someday it’ll be ours.”

  Would it? Could I live with this kind of conflict? I learned to avoid conflict by keeping God general—no mention of “Jesus” or “worship” or “tithe.” I loved Jack and Jack loved me. But I couldn’t talk about the most important Person in my life without risking an argument or lonely silence. And so the language of God—the words I used to describe my experience and the landscape of my heart—got lost. I went mute around Jack. Sometimes it felt like I had volunteered for a stroke.

  So also the blessings I’d been so grateful to find in New York—a healthy church and healthy Christian friends—started to drift away. I could feel it.

  I went to church alone on Sundays. I found myself reaching my hands up like I used to—to the puzzlement of the nonemotional classical-music-loving pastorate. I reached up because I missed God! I felt homesick for people who spoke my language. Even if they never used the words, they knew them. This church was safe from emotional excess, I could not stop the flood of my own longing.

  I still prayed, alone in my room. The prayers were always the same. “Dear God, please be patient! Please help me. Please help Jack see you. Please show me what to do!” Was there a conflict between God and me as well? Did God feel the tension of me putting Jack before him? I loved God more than I loved Jack. Even if my behavior looked otherwise.

  My church friends were worried. Martha scolded me about being unequally yoked. Jeannie said I didn’t seem as bubbly as I had been. Bill saw it too. He thought Jack was holding me back.

  I talked to one of my pastors about it. Would God be upset if I married Jack?

  “Susan, you can marry whomever you want,” my pastor replied. “But do you want to be with a man who doesn’t understand your deepest heart? Jesus is written into every part of your life. Do you want to live your spiritual life by yourself?”