By Sammi Deem
It is not an everyday occurrence that people take God to marriage counseling. In her book Angry Conversations with God, Susan Isaacs tells the story of how she did just that. Frustrated with her individual relationships with God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit, Isaacs seeks out a pastor-turned-therapist who ultimately helps her see that her relationship with God is a very unhealthy marriage. This leads to Isaacs’s ultimate decision to get a divorce.
Without giving anything away, you are encouraged to delve into the deeper meaning of Isaacs’ decision to get a divorce from her god. Isaacs uses stories such as the “Gold-tooth debacle” and the “Orthopraxy” and “Abercrombie” churches to tell her stories of how she moved from feeling unsafe at church to working in and living in community with church people of which she was at one point very critical.
Isaacs takes the reader through her spiritual journey by telling her life story. From growing up in a dysfunctional home as a child and then telling the reader about her adult life as an actor and writer, Isaacs takes the reader through a heartbreaking, yet page-turning story of her desire to seek God, purpose, love, and success. Through her intelligence and struggles Isaacs takes the reader on an emotional roller coaster.
Her ability to communicate her feelings so effectively helps the reader understand exactly what happens in the counseling sessions. It also helps the other characters in Isaacs’ story come alive. She saw life from many perspectives and never tried to judge because she hated being judged. In the end she saw how she was judging everyone and everything in this eye-opening story about how we as children of God relate to our Maker.
While much of Isaacs’ spiritual life is revealed in the dialogues of counseling, she connects it all back to the events she explains in the prose of her stories. Her counselor, Rudy, provides a much-needed voice of reason with an honest yet true sense of reality. This book seems so right it is hard to remember that it really happened.
I have no problem believing that God turned around Isaacs through the crazies in her story just as much as God redeemed her through Rudy’s guidance, because her pain from the crazies balances out with the beauty of her recovery (which was ignited in counseling with Rudy). Susan Isaacs provides a hopeful and believable story of healing in this book through honesty and even through downright anger.
When one carries around a book entitled Angry Conversations with God, others are tempted to ask what it’s about; it’s hard to explain. You pretty much have to say that it’s about a woman who takes God to marriage counseling. The good news is however, that through that crazy concept, there is inspired healing and renewed relationships with the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
Through Isaacs’ healing the reader is motivated to reassess his or her relationship with each member of the Trinity to decide whether he or she needs to evaluate the state of their relationship with God, Jesus, or the Holy Spirit.
Sammi is 18. She goes to Taylor University and is majoring in Christian Educational Ministries and minoring in Entrepreneurship. She hopes to one day open her own Community Center that focuses on helping people find community to meet their needs.