The Shack

Have you ever read something that would take your view of something you thought you knew and have it be turned upside down? I have - I just finished reading it.

William Paul Young’s The Shack is a work of fiction. But so much of what is in that book is all too real. It is the story of Mack Phillips, a man who is grieving terribly over the abduction and presumed murder of his six year-old daughter. Years after this happens he gets drawn back to a ramshackle cabin in the Oregon woods – where clues led to the last place his daughter, Missy, had likely been alive – and during his rather short stay there has an incredible experience, one that is to be read about rather than told about.

That is all I will say about the premise. You will simply have to read it for yourself.

With all of that said, it is not a long novel, but I have to say that it had a most incredible effect on me. Probably the biggest thing it did was blew away the ideas I already had about who God was. In its own simple way, this story caused me to re-think who He is and where He should be in my own life.

It is a metaphor for the search each one of us has to find meaning, or to find peace, or comfort when we’re faced with what looks to us like insurmountable adversity. At some level, I believe most of us are actively searching for this. Even some who already have the blessing of faith can’t help having this searching happen because, as human beings, we are limited to only what we see around us. This was something I took away from the story itself, and I’ve realized that it is quite true.

There have been a lot of reviews written about this novel since it was published in 2007. All I can say is that you really should read it for yourself.

You may love it, or you may hate it, but you won’t want to put it down. That’s a promise.