Free Angry Conversations with God by Susan E. Isaacs Page A

out of my father’s mouth. I shrieked, “No, no!” as if that could shove his words back in. But
     the words came out:
shot, assassin, news bulletin.
We turned on the news and saw hundreds of people outside John’s apartment in New York. John Lennon was dead.
    I ran outside and down the street. I ran past David’s house, past Julianne’s and Doug’s. I ran and ran with the music in my
     head.
Badlands. Badlands. Badlands.
    I got home after midnight. My father came out and sat next to me. “I always thought their voices sounded beautiful together.
     No matter what else people said about them, they sounded good together.” He put his arm around my shoulder and I wept.
    My sister came home the next night. We listened to John’s new album and cried together. “Do you think John’s in heaven?” she
     asked.
    “Nancy, please don’t—”
    “My theology professor thinks he could be.”
    “How?”
    “All time is the present to God. So he can send Jesus to John even now and give him a chance to know the real Jesus. After
     all, they loved the same things.”
    “Yeah. Justice and peace, and the truth.”
    “Do you want to pray?”
    I hadn’t prayed much lately. I hadn’t prayed with my sister since we were kids. Now I wanted to. We prayed that in the eternal
     now, Jesus would reveal himself to John. Not the wimpy churchy Jesus, but the Jesus who befriended sinners and fought for
     justice and peace and truth, like John. The Jesus who gave up his life so John could live forever.
    Over the next few months I thought about Jesus more. I had prayed for Jesus to save John, but I was keeping him at arm’s length
     myself. Why? Because I wanted to live life my way? Look where that had gotten me. I cared more about what my ex-boyfriend,
     friends, and teachers thought of me. Now they were all gone. Who was I, with no one there to remind me? Whose opinion mattered?
    I decided maybe I could stomach
The Way.
I pulled it out of my closet and read. And read and read. I knew all these verses, but they seemed more real to me now.
    For I know the plans I have for you, says the LORD
.
    They are plans for good and not for evil, to give you a
    future and a hope. (Jer. 29:11)
    For long ago the LORD had said to Israel: I have loved
    you, O my people, with an everlasting love; with
    loving-kindness I have drawn you to me. (Jer. 31:3)
    Never! Can a mother forget her little child and not
    have love for her own son? Yet even if that should be,
    I will not forget you. See, I have tattooed your name
    upon my palm and ever before me is a picture of
    Jerusalem’s walls in ruins. (Isa. 49:15-16)
    That was just the Old Testament. That was
God the Father
speaking. Jesus had so many things to say about how I could have abundant life, how he laid down his life for his friends.
     And he called me his friend. This time I heard the voice again: God’s still, small voice.
“
This
is what I created you for, Susan. This is your life. Life to the fullest.”
    My heart broke, knowing how I’d turned him away. But it broke open too from all that love. God had never left me. Jesus was
     still knocking on the door.
    As a child I loved Jesus the way a girl loves the boy next door. As a teenager, I wandered away. I was an adult now. It was
     time to make an adult decision; to say “I do” or stop stringing him along. My life stretched out ahead of me. And there was
     Jesus standing at the top of the road, calling me into a big, abundant life. Would I follow, no turning back?
    “Yes, Jesus. I do.”
    I didn’t wake up from that with a different molecular structure. But the loneliness and despair left. I’d caught glimpses
     of God’s presence before: standing in the backyard, looking at the stars, taking Communion. Now I felt it, the way you feel
     the difference between the desert and the tropics. The air was thick with God, with hope and with possibility.
    I knew I was forgiven. But I wanted more than forgiveness. I wanted to make it up to him. My