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Now and then you find a book that pulls you into its story in such a way that you can hardly put it down. That's how I found this book to be. I began reading it two nights ago and couldn't make myself stop reading until late. Then last night I picked it back up and read until I had finished it. The word that came into my mind as I finished reading was "Wow." This is a powerful book that I highly recommend.


The storyline is about Mackenzie Allen Phillips and his struggle to reconcile the idea of a loving God with the fact that his daughter was kidnapped and brutally murdered. One day Mack finds a note from "Papa" in his mailbox, inviting him to return to the abandoned shack deep in the woods where his daughter was killed.

Against his better judgement, he arrives at the shack on a wintry afternoon and walks right into his darkest nightmare. What he doesn't expect to find there is God,who is nothing like the religious god Mack had always imagined. Papa and the other two Persons of the Trinity spend the weekend with Mack, laughing, eating, talking, crying and mostly healing Mack's devastated emotions and restoring faith to his troubled soul.

Young does an exceptional job in The Shack showing the intimacy of the relationship shared between the Trinity and in demonstrating how He wants to share that same intimacy with us. I found myself laughing, crying, looking inward to my own doubts and fears, and finally looking upward to the God who is "especially fond of me."

I encourage you to go to amazon.com right now and buy this book. I checked out the author's web site this morning (www.theshackbook.com)and learned that Young has himself been severely hurt in life and apparently still is recovering from great trials he has faced, a fact which helps me understand how he can communicate God's faithfulness and love in the face of calamity with such pathos.

The Shack is a grace filled book that will encourage you to trust your "Papa" no matter what may be going on in your life.