Back to The Shack

I spent Memorial Day weekend re-reading The Shack by William P. Young. Mark Lowry told me to read it a couple of years ago and I did, but I didn’t like it the first time. After hearing somewhere that The Shack is a healing book for people in pain, I decided to give it another go.

If you’ve never heard about The Shack, the story of how the book came to be is just as interesting as the story in the book. Paul Young wrote it for his kids, printed some copies for friends who asked for more copies and more copies. Some guys in L.A. thought the story would make a good movie, if enough people bought the book, so they started a little publishing company. They kept selling out as word of mouth about The Shack spread. There are now 7 million copies in print. Last year alone 3.5 million copies were sold. A book can make the best seller list if 7,000 copies are sold. The Shack is a record breaker because people read it and buy copies for friends to read.

I read The Shack differently than I usually read a book. I read some, put the book down, thought about what I had read and then slept awhile. I did that over and over throughout the weekend. The process of making my way through The Shack was more like a conversation than a literary experience. There were times I couldn’t read any further because all I could do is cry and it seems like the book’s intention was to make that okay. When Mack meets God in The Shack, Mack starts to cry too. God said to him, “It’s okay honey, you can let it all out … I know you’ve been hurt, and I know you’re angry and confused. So, go ahead and let it out. It does a soul good to let the waters run once in a while–the healing waters.”

Growing up, my beliefs about God were so strong. I was a fundamentalist and I had confidence in what I knew to be true about God. Today, I can’t imagine having that kind of certainty again. I wouldn’t want that kind of certainty again. Once we know for sure, we stop investigating and that’s never a good thing.

I don’t have much interest in converting people so they think what I think about God. I don’t want to settle into a set of beliefs that make me comfortable and crusty. I’m intensely focused on this journey of personal transformation and working my way through The Shack this weekend healed and simplified what it means to me to trust in God. I hear it’s done the same thing for thousands of people who once believed, but lost hope as life happened in not so pleasant ways.

The theologeans can argue about it, but the story told in The Shack works for people who need it to work and I think that’s good enough.