HOW THE SHACK AFFECTED ME (SOMEONE REQUESTED I DO THIS)

Where to begin in describing the way Papa used this story. First off I will say it is the message of grace that this story is saturated with. Good art is so powerful because it contains little gems that are easily remembered and stick with you. This book is full of them.

Because of the heightened sense of being so vulnerable due to what was transpiring in our family, Papa had a wide open door to get at me through. Or maybe the open door had allowed me to begin to see him and that he was inviting me to go to where he was? Who knows....and does it really matter? I was so open to anything Papa wanted to do after that broken moment in my life and my family's.

The first thing I ran across, and I am certain a day has not passed from the time I first read it that I have not thought about it. "Grace rarely makes sense to those looking in from the outside." From that moment on, Papa had come so close I didn't care anymore what anyone thought about the way he was leading us as a family or me and my wife as parents. They could look at me as if I was a fool and I didn't care. I came to feel in a real way, Paul's description of the wastefulness of Papa's grace.

By time I got to chapter 9 A Long Time Ago In A Garden Far Far Away I was captured by the way Paul was telling this story. The realness of Papa, Jesus and Sarayu had just begun to captured me. I had read Wayne Jacbosen's book He Loves Me back in 2000 and it had already begun such a transformation in how I saw God and his unconditional love and his grace so freely extended to us all. This story Paul was telling made it play out right in front of me. I was there having my own experience at that shack. Being a garden designer this chapter was just stunning and the comparison to our souls was just beautiful. To begin to relax even more knowing that these three were so engaged in the process of transforming us and were enjoying it so much, just broke down even more walls. Why hide and fight any of it? From there on to Chapter 15 A Festival of Friends and then to the end, they had their way with me.

Like I said in the the God Journey podcast, I had never been so turned inside out in such a gentle and complete way. All I could say while reading Here Come Da Judge was, "Okay you've got me." I stood undone and exposed....with no defense....and at the same time was so acutely aware I didn't need one. All of this only to walk into The Belly of the Beast and have confirmed in me many of the changes in thinking that had already begun in me months before. Probably even years before. Changes in thinking that I had held at arms length, afraid to embrace because I new if I did my entire World View was going to change. The house of cards that I had built, always living with this uneasy sense that it was all very fragile and impossible to fit into Jesus' life and words, but a life I had held tightly to none the less, came tumbling down. And what a relief that was when that happened. This felt so freeing and I felt like I had begun to really breathe for the very first time.

There are so many more conversation we could have....and maybe will?....but I will end this with the Chapter Verbs and Other Freedoms. The chapter begins with Mack describing how he felt wrung out like a rag and yet exhilaratingly alive and it was a perfect description of how I was feeling. I to this day use that line a lot and still feel like that much of the time. One of the most dynamic changes in how I live today is learning to live in the moment. Letting go of the life of expectations and learning to live with expectancy has really opened up a new space for me. Fear, anger, anxiety, stress, frustration, exhaustion and many other overwhelming emotions began to just disappear, or at least only come around every so often and they just don't stay for much time at all anymore even if they do show up. Trying to live a life shaped by expectation when everything beyond this moment is nothing more than an imagined uncertain future is just a recipe for many problems. I am learning to live with much expectancy of what Papa is going to do. She/He is always up to something and is always at work to redeem that which needs redeemed in us all. I think most of the time in this process we aren't aware of what they are doing, just as Mack finds out. I love the part in the story when Mack catches Papa on the front porch sitting in the sun and askes her; "Don't you have anything better to do?" Her response spoke to me this very thing of us thinking we know what God is up to when I think most of the time we don't. "Mack, you have no idea what I am doing right now." I've never experienced anything like what began to happen in me after the most scary moment in my life with our oldest daughter and what happened to me with Papa, Jesus, and Sarayu through it all. What a ride this has turned out to be. And so that everyone knows, my daughter is a beautiful young lady and she is doing well today, and Papa is still working ever so gently on her messy soul just as he is all of us adults. I'm learning to stay tuned. This is a process that takes some time.

I have had so much fun with this book since it came out and we could begin to watch how it affects others that read it. Sitting on it for a year and only being able to talk to my wife and Wayne about it was hard. But the wait was so worth it. This is a lot of fun. Thanks Paul.