The Shack

After I read the book 4 or 5 years ago, I hoped that this would someday be made into a movie so that the message of forgiveness, redemption, and His love so deep and awesome could be shared with millions more. (Too few people read a good book or The Good Book anymore.) When I heard the movie had been made, I waited to see it so that I could first let go of a bias I had that made me assume the movie would not do the book justice. Aside from a few details throughout the story, which the book went into more depth to develop and a couple a deviations in the movie compared to the book, the message of this story in both publications was spot-on the same. I only wish the actor that played the Son looked more like how He was described in the book, which was taken from the description given to us in Isaiah 53:2, and not the handsome man that played Him in the movie. I knew the Holy Spirit was going to be a challenging role to fill, given the books description as One more ethereal and not of solid bodily form. However, the movie did well to cast a shimmering light about the actress at times so I give it a pass. As for the one that played God, there isnt an actress alive today that could have filled this role better or aligned more perfectly with how the book described Him. The only major story line piece missing from the movie was when Mack (after his car accident at the end) directed authorities to the cave where they would find the remains of his daughter. Watch the movie. Read the book. You will love them both.

Great movie!

BEST MOVIE!!! I cannot say enough about it. I saw a Super Soul Sunday (Oprah) with the author. Very interesting: This is his story - in his own words! The book I’ve written, The Shack, has proved to be hugely successful in ways that I couldn’t possibly have imagined. But the phone call that got it all started was something that threw my ordered world–what I desperately wanted people to believe was ordered–into pain and chaos long before I ever put pen to paper. I was an insurance agent, supporting my wife, Kim, and our six kids, the picture-perfect husband and provider. Framed family photos on the desk, the kids stretching from ages one to 14. I took them on camping trips up the Columbia Gorge and told them bedtime stories. I wanted to give them the safe, secure childhood I’d never had and never talked about. But the terror of my past was rarely far beneath the surface, no matter how hard I tried to hide it. I was always running from half-buried memories, haunted by doubts, doubts that said if anyone really knew who I was deep inside, no one could possibly love that damaged and frightened person. January 4, 1994, one phone call changed everything. I was just finishing lunch with a friend and Kim was on the line. “Hi, darling,” I said, waiting to hear some detail about the kids’ soccer games or a meeting with a teacher or a question about dinner–was I going to be home late again? “I’m here in your office,” she said, her voice like cold steel, “and I’m waiting for you.” “What’s wrong?” “I know.” Then she hung up. The air was sucked out of the room. I wanted to keep maintaining the fiction of our perfect marriage because it was all I really had in life. I wanted to hide, because hiding and lying were what I knew how to do best. I could appear to be the model Christian dad. I was the son of missionary parents, a Bible school graduate, a former seminary student. Kim and I had actually met at a church when I had a staff position in charge of the college youth group. She walked into a Friday evening meeting with two of her sisters. One look at her raven hair and dark searching eyes and I changed what I had planned. “Why don’t we split up into groups of two and pray for each other?” I said. Of course, I paired myself with Kim. She knows, I thought now. I wanted to run away, but that would solve nothing. You can’t run from your own sorry self. The next thought was ending my life, the ultimate form of self-centered running away. Perhaps it was a nudge of grace, but I finally decided I had to face Kim, even if the anger in her voice terrified me. All the secrets had to come out, all those things that had happened to me so long ago yet still seemed so much a part of the present, my behaviors and addictions I could never talk about. It was all or nothing. The trip to the office was one of the longest of my life. I pulled into the parking lot and slunk out of the car. I pushed open the door. The place was a shambles. Files thrown on the floor, drawers open, paperclips and pens dumped on the carpet, the trash can knocked over, memos ripped off my bulletin board. In the middle of it all sat Kim at my computer. She knew I was having an affair with one of her best friends. All the e-mails between us were there for anyone to find. Was I secretly hoping to get caught? The guilty, they say, seek punishment. “How could you? How could you betray me like this?” Kim shouted. I couldn’t meet her scorching gaze. I couldn’t bear seeing the pain in those dark eyes. Pathetically, I promised that I would end it right away, that I’d never let it happen again. “Why should I believe you?” Why indeed? I didn’t even trust myself. I was in no position to promise anything. But I did make one pledge: “I don’t want to be like this, Kim. I love you. I’ll do anything to keep you. I’ll find the best counselor I can and work with him. I want to change, and there’s so much I need to tell you. Secrets have been killing me my whole life and if we are going to do this, I can’t have any more secrets.” After hours of intense interrogation, laced with fury and grief, Kim was done. “I will never believe another thing that comes out of your mouth the rest of your life,” she declared. I reached out to hug her, just touch her and hold on, but she stood up and pushed her way past, slamming the door in tears. And there I was, left to myself and the mess in my office, the mess in my life. The mess that was inside me. All my life I’d heard people say God loved us–that God loved me–but I’d never really believed it. How could I? I didn’t love myself. What could God love about me, especially now? Over the next three days I tried to talk to Kim. Why not tell her the truth? But she didn’t want to hear it. I was terrified I’d lost her already. In desperation I started seeing a therapist, two to three times a week. For the first time I asked another human being to enter into my life and help me heal. It was the first I’d told anyone what had happened to me as a boy growing up in New Guinea. My parents were missionaries to a primitive people and in those days missionary children were only allowed to be with their parents until they reached school age. At six I was sent to a boarding school. Sexual abuse that had already been occurring at the hands of the tribe since I was four now continued at the missionary school. I was terrorized, brutalized, dehumanized. The deep examination of what I had undergone nauseated me. Shame had become the very air I breathed, just another word for self-hatred. But if I were to change, if I were to heal, I would have to face the worst. It didn’t excuse my ugly behavior–nothing did–but it helped me to understand the duplicity, the fear, the loneliness–all the defense mechanisms that protected me as an abused child but were destroying me as an adult. I needed to get honest, with myself, with Kim, with God, with everyone. At night, at home, after the children had gone to bed, I would tell Kim what I had told the therapist: the horrible stuff I had been running away from for over 30 years. She would listen, but barely respond. My despair grew. I couldn’t heal her any more than I could heal myself. And night after night, I felt I was slowly losing myself–that if I kept up the truth-telling, there would be nothing of me left, the layers peeled back with nothing at the center. Where were the people who should have protected me as a child? Where was God? Didn’t anyone care at all? For the first time I allowed my anger to surface, and it began to consume me. One day I went to an old barn and found a pile of fallen wormy apples. I flung them against the barn, watching them smash and explode, until I had no rage left. There I sat, in a cascade of tears amid the pulp and the pungent, fermented odor of rotting apples. I couldn’t dredge up anything more. I couldn’t lie anymore. I was like the pulverized pulp on the ground, rotten to the core. I bent down and picked up a seed. If only I could hold on to some seed of hope, some sign that I would get better. “Are you there anymore?” I asked God. Am I? I wondered. Later I confessed to a family friend I had lost all hope. What I didn’t tell her was that I was planning to fly to Mexico and rent a room, buy enough prescription drugs to kill myself where my children would not discover my body. I was done, exhausted, finished. She said quietly, “Paul, there is a seed.” “A seed?” What did that mean? In my despair I could sense the answer: A seed can grow. If there was even one seed then something could grow. What God could do for a seed he could do for me. In one little seed all my hope came back. I never struggled with suicide again. Healing is a process, and that was the beginning. It took 11 years for me–and for Kim and me–11 years of hard emotional work building a whole new relationship based on trust, a trust I had learned that started with trusting God with all my pain, all my anger, all my secrets. I came to understand how God had never abandoned me. I spoke to him more frankly. I didn’t try to hide anymore. The conversations with Kim stretched into some long talks about how God had reached me when I had completely bottomed out. Then one day she said, “Why don’t you write down what you’ve learned as a gift for the kids?” I wrote on a pad of paper as I was commuting to and from work, telling the story of a man who met God when he thought he’d lost everything. Those pages turned into a novel, The Shack, that I photocopied at Office Depot and passed along to family and friends, and then it all got out of hand. Before I knew what had happened, I was a best-selling author. But that’s not why I wrote the book. The book is true, just not real, like a parable. I may not be exactly like the fictional main character, but what that man learns about the healing power of love and forgiveness, the liberation of the soul through transparency and grace, is a journey I know well.

The Shack This good hearted and spiritual movie is rated with nearly a whopping 5 stars. So unusual for this kind of movie. So I just had to check it out. After watching it - This little sleeper amazingly deserves it! It starts out like a nice calm drive through the neighborhood, then it turns the spiritual corner onto faster traffic. The speed increase forces you to start spiritually hanging on tighter (paying attention). Then, before youre ready, it pulls you onto an unassuming freeway on-ramp. Youll find yourself spiritually holding on even tighter out of fear and tragedy. Then, before you know it, youll find yourself uncomfortably white knuckling it at 100 miles an hour until it abruptly starts slowing down towards an off ramp. Youll feel relieved things are slowing down - just to catch your breath. At the end, it parks you at a beautiful quiet place where you cant help but reflect on the journey you just had. A must watch for All Believers (And Nonbelievers). Thank God for such an inspirational movie!

GOOD FOR PERSONAL GROWTH. HEALING BOTH EMOTIONALLY AND SPIRITUALLY.

I absolutely love this movie and how it shows that God pursues us!

I was amazed at how this movie made me reflect on my own life. It addresses the realness of God, the son & the holy ghost. It addresses forgiveness and makes you look at how important it is. I cried all the way thru this movie. Have tissues ready.

Let me set the stage a bit. The Case for Christ was getting ready to be released and I heard some women in my theology class talking about the Shack. Shortly after this, I saw a trailer. I was a bit put off thinking Octavia Spencer might be representing God.. hopefully not. I decided not to see it at the theater and instead read the book. The book helped me get past the God as a woman with its explanation for it but some of the things in the book were hard for me to visualize. I liked the book though and had no trouble finishing it. then I preordered the movie. This movie is a GOOD thing. I dont understand why people are trying to make it bad. If more Christians operated on the basis of love, forgiveness and trusting God to be the judge there would be... wait for it more Christians. Call me crazy but Im pretty sure God would approve. Ive started reading this piece called The Shack -- the Missing art of evangelical discernment thanks to a commenter. I have a lot to read still but one thing I have noticed is that the writer doesnt seem to get the concept of the trinity saying that the Father and the Holy Spirit werent suffering with JKesus on the Cross. That is like saying Jesus wasnt there at creation when the bible clearly states he was John 1:1, 14. The trinity is very hard to wrap our heads around but the movie did a good job representing it when Mack asked: Whch one of you is... The answer says it all. Watch it if you love God, watch it if you dont believe in God but arent so opposed to God you cant stand any references to it. Watch it if you have a semi-open mind. The message in this movie is something the world needs so much more of and though I am a professing active Christian Im not referring to the believing in Christ part. I thought this was a beautiful movie wonderfully acted and it almost brought my stoic husband to tears. I am so sad to see so many Christans not supporting something that could be so helpful to the faith if they just practiced the Biblical principals of love and forgiveness this movie does so well at conveying.

My wife and I enjoyed this interesting portrayal of the holy trinity with a nice twist at the end.

I loved this movie!!!