I just finished reading The Shack by William P. Young. It's a rather powerful book that took me a couple of months to finish. Skepticism and doubt of the stories truth kept me from finishing it the first time I picked it up. The Shack is supposedly a true story of Mackenzie Allen Philip's real life written by his good friend William P. Young. It takes you through the abduction and murder of his youngest daughter, Missy; you see a glipse of his Great Sadness and his journey back to the shack. At the shack he finds God in three different forms, the trinity.
I'll first go through the great tragedy. Without a doubt, I know this part is true. I can't even imagine the pain and suffering the family went through when their young daughter was abducted by the Lady Killer and presumed murdered when they found her bloody dress at the shack. Mackenzie aka Mack never had an easy life having been abused greatly by his father growing up and now his youngest of 5 being abducted and murdered. He got angry and depressed and went through what he called The Great Sadness for years after. One day he got a letter in the mail telling him to come to the shack; it was signed Papa. This was when the story lost me.
If this part was presented to me as a fiction, I would have had no trouble reading it. It has a powerful and different view of God and the trinity. What happened in that shack and what Mackenzie saw really got me thinking and pondering my view of God. Could God really be like the God in the book; could he present himself to someone like he does in the book. My skepticism says that it is just baloney this really happened and Mackenzie didn't actually see everything that he said he saw. A part of me wishes it could be true; if I saw what he saw and how he saw it, my life would forever be transformed just his was. I guess since I have some of those issues that Mack had to address at the Shack might be why I don't exactly believe that this could be a true portrayal of life. If you have childlike faith, you might believe the whole story that is in the book.
There are twists and turns in the book that keep you guessing and keep you reading. All in all it's a good read, and I'd recommend it to someone who has an open mind about God.
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2 comments:
Heather,
I loved The Shack. Sherry and I even bought a few copies for Christmas gifts. I don't think this is based on a true story so you should not worry about the far fetched parts related to the trinity. I think the author is just trying to get people to stop putting God in a box. The book is categorized as fiction and the stories about how it was written tend to agree with it being a work of fiction.
Glad to hear you enjoyed it. I could not put it down and went on to read one of the recommendations in the back of The Shack titled So You Don't Want to Go to Church Anymore. It too will challenge you to rethink your perspectives especially when it comes time to use the word "church". I recommend it if you have not read it.
Hank O
I heard William Young at Catalyst and he said that it was a fictionalized account of his struggle with God over a number of years after a personal tragedy. He said it represented his personal journey of getting beyond the God he learned about in seminary to understanding a personal God who was much bigger than the boxes we try to put God in.
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