In 2005 my life started to fall apart. I was in a
relationship that had gone very sour, and everything that I had was invested in
it. My heart, my work, my finances, my time, my life. I had come very near
to losing my soul, too, and that was when God stepped in. I was born again on
December 12 of that year, but up until then, there was a series of events that
I know now could only have been orchestrated by a Master Planner. I had
originally come to New York to be an actress, and over the years I had done a
few things, but nothing major, and had not found fame or fortune. I had started
writing plays and short stories and poetry, and had started my own business helping
visual artists, designers and writers and actors to get their work seen and
produced. I was working in a lot of community based settings, in bars and
restaurants and boutiques and galleries, combining happy hours and dinner hours
and lunch special hours and shopping events. I got a write up in the Daily News
once, and ever after that people started to do what I had been doing. I see it
now wherever I go, and it makes me smile. I used to say, “I started that,” but
I know now that it was God who gave me the idea and He was the one who made it
happen and thrive. The relationship I was in had started as a business
relationship. I had wanted to start a community center, and sent word out through
my network, and met someone I thought would be a perfect business partner. But
in my somewhat youthful exuberance, I missed some major cues, and found myself
two years later with everything I’d cared about going down the drain.
Somehow or other during that time I had contacted a friend
of mine who is a film maker. I don’t remember what the reason was, and it may
have been that he just came by where I was living one day for a visit. It may
really have been that simple. Whatever happened, he told me he was in the process
of producing another movie, and he was having auditions and I went in. I’d done
a few things with him in the past, and had always enjoyed myself. He’s one of
the best men I know – good as gold, honest, and someone who has never lost his
sense of decency the way some people in the movie business can. He makes good
films too – he’s a professional and has an eye for film that is truly a gift.
He also has a great sense of humor, something that I appreciate all the time,
and at that time I needed it so much. Over the years we’d had dinner parties and
shared cooking tips, and he was the first person I knew who had moved out to
Williamsburg – this was long before it was what it is now. He helped me move I
don’t know how many times, and invited me to so many great parties over the
years I’ve lost count. He’s an all around great guy and a cool one, and I’m
blessed to have him as a friend.
I ended up being cast in the film as an art student – I’m
described in the cast list as a cranky one, because I complain all the time about wanting to get
paid and I’m not happy with the idea of art for art’s sake. The film itself was
full of wacky characters and wonderful visuals – it was a parody of Stanley Kubrick’s
films, or rather “a parody of a parody” as the director describes it in the
trailer. It’s about a photographer named Stanley, who the devil is after
because he wants his soul. How strange and wonderful to look back on that now
with the understanding that I have of how God works. I had been in danger of
losing my soul when I was born again, and here I was in this movie right at the
same time.
There are always such deep meanings with God, so many layers
and levels that He works on. Things keep unfolding as time goes on, there are
so many “aha” moments. A few years before I was in that movie, I’d met a
photographer in Paris who was working on a project. He asked to do a portrait of
me, and I sat for him and offered to help him in whatever way I could to show
his work in New York. God opened a door so big at that time that even though I
didn’t know it was God, I knew it was something supernatural. Through a series
of what I now know are Divine appointments, he ended up having a show in a very
prestigious gallery. Things got ugly between us where there had once been a
friendship because I asked him for a percentage of the profits from the show. I
was just at the point in my life that things had started to go south, and he
was selling his portraits for upwards of $10,000. But the gallery was
taking half of that, and he had other debts and expenses at home. He sent me some
angry emails and finally wired me $500 as an insult, a slap in the face from
someone who was so hurt that I didn’t just want to help him from my heart. And
I did want to help him from my heart, but I had expenses and debts too, and my
life as I knew it was over. And then there I was in that film, the cranky art
student asking, “How do we get paid?!” in a film about a photographer who is in
danger of losing his soul.
Jesus asks us in Mark 8:36, “For what will it profit a man
if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul? Or what will a man give in
exchange for his soul?” This question comes just after Jesus has fed four
thousand men, not including women and children, with seven loaves of bread and a few
fish (and he had already fed 5,000 with three loaves and two fish); he had healed a
blind man; and Peter had confessed Him as the Christ. He predicted His death
and resurrection, and then rebuked Peter when he spoke against that death happening.
A crowd forms around Him once again, and he begins to tell them to lose their
lives and deny themselves and take up their cross if they want to follow Him.
There’s a reason why God tells us not to change His words
around – not to take anything out or add anything to them (Revelation 22:18-19).
If we just hear “Take up your cross and follow me,” it can seem harsh and
cruel, and like something that is a punishment. But God is not a harsh and
cruel God. He is a God of compassion who can feed four thousand plus people
with seven loaves of bread and a few small fish. We can let go of what we have
been holding onto, we can help someone else just from our hearts. We can do
things His way, even when it makes no sense to us, because He will supply what
we need and more. There were twelve baskets of leftovers from those seven
loaves and a few small fish. If we lose our lives and give up what we think we
need, He’ll supply what we really need and much more.
My brother wrote a song once called “Noodle Salad.” It’s
based on something that is part of the movie, “As Good As It Gets,” a movie he
really liked. The message in the movie, and the message of the song, is that we
can get all caught up in all kinds of things that don’t really mean anything
except worry. The other option, the one that my brother wrote about, is to “wake
up each morning with the sunshine in your eyes and you can carry it with you.”
My brother did not have an easy life, and he wrote this song just a few months
before he died very young of a painful disease. I have a copy of it hanging on my wall by my door to
remind me that, “Everyone’s got problems, everyone's felt heartache, it happens everywhere you go, but if
you take your burdens, put ‘em in your pocket, there’s a better
way to live. Good times, good friends, noodle salad." What will it profit a man
if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul? Absolutely nothing. But
what if we decide to lose our life in order to gain it? We’ll find there's a better way to live.
Blessings,Jannie Susan
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