The Shack, a novel by William P. Young, has sold over 10 million copies since it was first published in 2007. You may own one of these copies, just as I do. Maybe you are one of the thousands of people that have attended the newly-released movie production of The Shack. I was one of those people, and I had great anticipation to see one of my favorite books now on the big screen. The movie did not disappoint! I walked out of the theater feeling just as loved, awestruck, and refreshed as when I read the book almost 7 years ago. You, like myself and many others, may have also read the blogs, social media posts, and reviews taking aim at this movie. Many are outraged and have even taken to warning Christians that the movie is heresy. Others are calling it blasphemy. So, my question is: why are so many people flocking to see this movie, then? Why did this book sell millions of copies and spend time on the New York Times Bestsellers list? What exactly is the attraction?

I would like to throw my metaphorical two cents into the pot. I want to share with you my story and how God used The Shack to bless my life.

About 8 years ago, while working in the long-term care industry, I had the pleasure of working closely with many wonderful families through the process of placing their loved ones at the facility I worked for. A lot of the families would stop in my office to chat with me before they left after one of their regular visits. One day, a woman (I’ll call her Lisa) asked me if I had read the book The Shack. I said no, and she told me I must read it because it was one of the best books she had ever read. I agreed to read it knowing that I probably wouldn’t. I was a working wife and mother, my husband was a pastor, I didn’t have the extra time to read!

Fast forward a year and half – it’s a beautiful April day. It was Wednesday, April 14^th, 2010 to be exact. I got off of work and stopped by the house to pick up my daughter, Kailyn. We went to Wal-Mart to pick up a package of Bubba Burgers for dinner. While shopping, we ran into a friend of mine and had a quick catch-up chat about our children. My oldest son Jerell, who had served in the Navy, was living in California with his wife and our first grandson. My second son, Chris, was in Texas with the Army Reserve. Ashanti, my third son, was doing well in Flat Rock, Ohio and Kailyn was tackling the dreaded high school years. After my friend talked about her children, we hugged and parted ways.

As we headed home, I told my daughter about a commercial I saw that suggested making hamburgers with a French onion powder mix and I thought I’d try it out that night. I cooked our dinner and we sat down in the living room to eat, with the Golden Girls (one of our favorite shows) on the TV. And then, the doorbell rang. It was 5:15 pm. It was so nice out that day that the front door was open so our kitty could look out of the glass storm door. When I got up and walked towards the door, I saw a local police officer standing there. Immediately, I thought to myself, “What have the neighbor kids done now?” I opened the door, offering a smile and a hello to the officer. He asked if I knew John Scott. My heart fluttered. “Yes, he’s my husband,” I replied. He then asked if I had a son in Napa, California. “Yes,” I replied again, as the fluttering in my heart turned into pounding. He asked for permission and then entered my home. He sat on the couch and asked if my daughter would leave the room. My daughter was not quite to her room yet when the officer proceeded to tell me that our son, Jerell, had passed away early that morning. He had committed suicide. Everything started swirling. My daughter, who overheard the officer, was screaming. I was crying as I reached for my phone to call my husband. He was working second shift at the Post Office in Dayton. The greatest, crushing sadness that we had ever known descended with violent force. On that day, Wednesday, April 14, 2010 at 5:15 pm, our lives and our family were completely shattered. Every bit of hope, trust, belief, and faith was lost. All that stood was pain, devastation, and hopelessness.

What just happened? How could you be talking about someone one minute and the next, you’re told that they no longer exist? How are we lovers of Jesus Christ, serving Him with all of our hearts, pastoring a church, doing all of the “right things” and yet, we lose our 23-year-old son to suicide?

Hello, God? Where are you?

Did you leave your throne?

What is going on?

Why is this happening to us?

As the days and weeks passed, the confusion and the pain remained. The funeral, which my wonderful, brave husband preached, came and went. Soon, Jerell’s military grave marker came in and was placed at his burial plot. The “sorry for your loss” cards and the phone calls stopped. I think that many people silently didn’t understand who we were anymore and they didn’t know how to help or what to say. After more time continued to pass, people wondered why we weren’t just “over it.” They would say things like, “He’s with Jesus.” “The joy of the Lord is your strength.” “Maybe you weren’t praying enough.” All of those nice and neat Christian clichés that we learn; the simple, clean-cut answers we like to give, glossing over things that are ugly and dirty. We don’t like ugly and dirty because they mess with our sensibilities and securities, like our false sense of control. We don’t like reminders of this fallen planet we live on. Eventually, our family entered counseling, not knowing where we were headed and what our family was going to be like from now on. We didn’t know what our new “normal” was going to look like.

Several months after Jerell’s passing, my mind recalled the memory of Lisa telling me about The Shack. I took this as a sign from above and went to the local bookstore to buy a copy. When I returned home, I settled into my favorite place on the couch and began to read. After a while, I had to put the book down because I couldn’t see through my tears. My heart immediately went out to the book’s main character, Mack. I was grieving with him and for him. Their family was my family. I took my time reading, although it was difficult to keep myself from consuming it all at once. I just knew, because I felt it, that this book, at this exact moment in my life, was God-ordained. If I had read it when it was suggested to me, it would not have had the same impact that it was having now in this moment. During this time, almost every night, I dreamed about Jerell. I was very aware of the importance of this period in my life. I knew, without a shadow of a doubt, that this book was given to me by God to help me through my painful, overwhelming sadness.

So now, in this present day, we are having what I like to call the great “Shack Attack.” Articles, blogs, and interviews are all working to tear apart and discredit the movie which came from a book that means so much to me. Theology lessons, dissecting Greek and Hebrew history, name-calling – just a few of the things that some Christians are infamous for. A lot of these critics have never read The Shack or even seen the movie. How can you criticize something if you haven’t taken a first-hand look at it? What are you basing your opinions on?

If you have never experienced a devastating loss, disappointment, or abandonment, the significance of this story might pass you by. You might overlook some of the themes in the movie, like the amazing love of our Father, the unity of the Trinity, the restoration of broken lives, and the redemption of families. When you are overly critical of the theological accuracy of the movie, you are setting boundaries and perimeters which God Almighty cannot go beyond. You dictate His ways. You say what He is or isn’t capable of. You limit the vastness of His glory, mercy, and power.

I can personally relate to Mack in many ways. My biological father abandoned me and my step-father was not a good person. As far as I was concerned, men, in general, were no good. Because of this, trying to wrap my mind around a God who was loving, good, kind, protective, steadfast, a provider, and always there for me was an extremely difficult task. It has taken me years to get to that place of acceptance. Seeing the Father love Mack and all of His creation enough to be what they needed at any given moment in order to reach them and reveal to them His eternal promise of love and redemption helped to bridge that gap in my own life. I came to see, in a deeper way, that despite what the men in my life had done, I truly can trust God.

I say this because a huge point of controversy from The Shack (Movie) is the depiction of God inhabiting the form of an African-American woman. However, in no way, shape, or form does the author of the book say that God literally exists as an African-American woman. This is an illustration – a representation – for Mack’s benefit. If God had initially inhabited the form of a man, Mack would have immediately shut down in this particular sequence because of his mistrust of male figures. The purpose of this part of the story is to get Mack to trust, to open up, and to begin this journey of restoration. Why are we skeptical of God’s ability to do miraculous and marvelous things to create beauty out of the ashes of life, anyway? He brought water out of a rock, parted a sea, raised the dead, turned water into wine, gave sight to the blind, made a donkey speak, fed thousands, redeemed humanity – the list goes on and on. Surely, God could inhabit the form of any human being if He felt that it was necessary.

One of the most magnificent depictions I have ever seen of the Trinity is beautifully captured in The Shack. The unity, love, agreement, and flow between the Trinity is breathtaking. The love of the Father for Mack can be felt through the pages of the book and on the big screen. The gospel, the Good News, is preached loudly and clearly. The overall message declares God is good, Jesus is our Savior, and the Holy Spirit helps us find our way through the ups and downs of life as we currently experience it.

So, please, don’t dismiss this movie without seeing it first. When you do that, you are diminishing not only my experience, but the experiences of countless others and the effect that this movie (and book) has had on our lives. See, some of us have actually been to the shack: we’ve buried our babies, our marriages have ended in divorce, cancer has attacked our bodies, our dream jobs were lost, and we found ourselves in that vast place of desolation, far away from any sense of normality. Our faith was rocked to its core. The houses that we thought we built on the rock were really built on sand. We cried, we screamed, we even turned our anger to God. We wrestled with despair. But in the end, some of us have found our way home. Restoration, forgiveness, and redemption are all possible. God’s ability to reach into our pain is not limited by time nor space. He is not confined to our human perceptions and understandings. He is the Great I Am; with God all things are possible. There is life after destruction. We can walk through the valley of the shadow of death and awaken to a place of beauty and wonder, a place where peace, hope, restoration, and forgiveness belong to us. But we must always keep our eyes and our hearts open, because you never know how God might try to reach you.