I’m somewhat of a skeptic. Not about my beliefs, whether formed by faith or through actual experiences, but skeptic of what others ‘really’ believe or pretend to believe.
So when I started reading ‘The Shack’ by William P. Young, my skepticism kicked into high gear. I wasn’t sure, if I liked the book, or if I would finish reading it. Yet I continued to read on, curious about what was going to happen next.
With each page moving me to another chapter then another, I wondered at first, why this book is a top seller. I scolded myself, for continuing to read it, because ‘its way to hokey even for me’.
I know a writer's job is to keep the reader in motion. This book did that by making me wonder where it was taking me. It took me deeper into McKenzie’s Great Sadness, forcing me get to know him personally. By doing this, I could feel McKenzie’s pain.
My skepticism turned to worry. Will he go? What will happen to him when he gets there? Why is he going alone? What does he think he’ll find? With each step and mile towards his certain death, my heart ached for McKenzie because his ‘Great Sadness’ was making him to do a foolish thing. It was then I realized I was hoping for a miracle. I wanted to believe the unbelievable.
You are probably asking, what and where am I talking about. Sorry I can’t tell you, you have to read the book. I can tell you this, what does happen is something only seen in movies or in someone’s dreams. I found myself analyzing about any one of us and our lives. Are our lives merely a dream of reality or is our reality within our dreams.
When I turned the last page, those initial feelings of I can’t believe I’m reading this stuff were gone and I felt hope. Hope in, if we learn to forgive not only others but ourselves, in this hectic world of today where patience is minimal, and road rage is on the rise, our own sorrows would be less. To learn to see, amidst a growing de-sensitivity towards the earth and others, the miracles that surround us. The miracles of what this earthly world offers us—the big miracles in the ‘simple’ every day things.
Such as the miracle, any one can see on a spring day, when a delicate flower is strong enough and has broken through frozen ground. When tiny birds we consider fragile, survive what Mother Nature throws at them, and return after a long migration flight, to serenade us with their song of life. The miracle that’s free for us to witness, on a snowy winter day, when one snowflake gathering with others makes a blanket of white, covering miles, allowing us to see, the power of —one—at— a— time.
Do I believe what happened in ‘The Shack’ happened for real? I’m not sure.
But for me, it is a nice thought, that even if a life changing event happens in a dream, and we emerge with a new perspective about life, doesn’t that somehow make it real?
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