The Shack

The Shack is one of those books that I knew I'd eventually read, because it's one that so many people have been talking about. It has been on the best seller list for nearly a year. I first heard of it about 7 months ago or so, when some women from my church Life Group were discussing it. Ever had an experience where you hear of something once, and suddenly you feel like you hear about it all the time? The Shack is one of those experiences for me. For a while it seemed like it was coming up in conversations everywhere I went. My in-laws kindly gave me the book for Christmas, both of them having read it and loved it. But with a newborn, my time for reading books has been, well.... absolutely non-existent. Until now. Westin is finally in a great sleeping pattern and I actually have some evenings with free time.

In case anyone hasn't heard of it or doesn't know the premise, here is what the back of the book says: "Mackenzie Allen Phillips's youngest daughter, Missy, has been abducted during a family vacation and evidence that she may have been brutally murdered is found in an abandoned shack deep in the Oregon wilderness. Four years later, in the midst of his Great Sadness, Mack receives a suspicious note, apparently from God, inviting him back to that shack for a weekend. Against his better judgment he arrives at the shack on a wintry afternoon and walks back into his darkest nightmare. What he finds there will change his world forever. In a world where religion seems to grow increasingly irrelevant The Shack wrestles with the timeless question: Where is God in a world so filled with unspeakable pain? The answers Mack gets will astound you and perhaps transform you as much as it did him. You'll want everyone you know to read this book."

So, I've started reading it. But... I'm stuck for some reason. I'm only about a fifth of the way through it. You see, I am not an overtly emotional person on the outside. I'm pretty even keeled, and I don't get too excited or too angry over anything. No one would describe me as especially expressive, and most of you have probably never seen me cry. But - I AM emotional on the inside, and for some reason it really comes out in books and movies, and heck, sometimes even commercials. I internalize the character's plights, struggles, emotions, etc. and fully engage in the story. In fact, there have been a few movies that have flat-out wiped me out emotionally, and they're not even movies that you would think would have that effect on me. ("Girl, Interrupted " is one of them... so is "Love Actually". I wept during both of them, and the weeping even continued long after the movie ended. Odd, I know.) And I don't like scary movies at all because, well... they scare me. Bad. So, knowing this about me, I've been very apprehensive to read about an innocent little girl getting brutally murdered and a father dealing with his grief. I have a small fear that it will be too much for my frail heart and that it will mess me up. I'm sure I won't regret reading it, and I'm certain that I WILL read it... just in tiny bits. I just recently got through the girl's abduction and the proof that she was murdered. And then I stopped. Gotta take a breather. I'll come back to it again another night.

So, if The Shack comes up on conversation, and I'm asked if I've read it, I probably won't be able to say YES for a while. We'll see. If you've read it and loved it or hated it, feel free to comment. I've heard lots of opinions on both sides. I'll let you know what mine is once I'm done with it.