The Shack

I really find it hard to recommend books related to grief. Grief is different for each of us and what helps me may not help someone else. I am careful not to take “too much” from grief support books whether they be fictional or non fictional. I find that a lot of the time the things I am highlighting can be found in my very own Bible, and I feel horrible when I overlook God’s word and hit the bookstores instead. But I also believe God inspires books that truly help people so I think a healthy balance of both is a wonderful idea.

That being said I recently read The Shack by: William P. Young.
I am admittedly late in the game reading this book. It seems like everyone has read it. I happened to see a copy on a goodwill shelf, and knew my sister had read it so I decided what the heck. I guess the best summary is that it is about a man who looses his young daughter to a violent crime. Later he receives a letter from God “Papa” inviting him back to the shack where she was killed. He does go and in turn has a personal journey with God and His three Persons, that changes him forever.

There is so much in this book that has been reported as controversial. I tend to swim upstream so controversial doesn’t bother me at all. But it may bother you so take heed. The writer makes God and His Trinity very personalized. So I only would recommend it if you are in need of healing your personal relationship with god and put religion aside.

Ok now that that is out of the way… there were two main points that struck my heart with some real power. I struggle with why God doesn’t stop our pain, loss, suffering? You know the real ugly stuff that hurts to your bones. The reality that God had the power to keep Nathan alive!

Character Mack has a similar question
“You may not cause those things, but you certainly don’t stop them.”

God “Papa’s” response
“There are millions of reasons to allow pain and hurt and suffering rather then to eradicate them, but most of those reasons can only be understood with each person’s story”

Doesn’t that just hit home. We will never understand loosing Nathan this side of heaven. But the reasons seem to be sometimes all I can focus on. It will never make sense, but it can be made good. In Nathan’s story there are moments of pure peace. There are moments of pure sadness. Sometimes there are just pure moments. I think the point is that there are moments at all. There is a story to be told, and every time I tell it, a seed is planted for something only God can grow. God has His reasons, and for me to understand them would take away from the miracle of grace. The grace that I even know God at all. That He knows I want to know the reasons and knows I am going to be angry, but He loves me anyway and is patient and helps me tell Nathan’s story despite not getting what I want.

Lastly Character Mack and I share the want to shed the “Great Sadness" His character states…
“The great sadness would not be a part of his identity any longer. He knew that (Missy) wouldn’t care if He refused to put it back on. In fact, she wouldn’t want Him to huddle in that shroud and would likely grieve for him if he did. He wondered who he would be now that he was letting all that go -to walk into each day without guilt and despair that had sucked the color of life out of everything”


This spoke so loudly to me. A little over a year it has been now, and I still catch myself feeling guilty if I am not sad a whole day. If I laugh to loud do I hurt Nathan’s feelings? If I decide not to lay in bed and enjoy the sunshine am I a horrible mother? If I want to become a new me, and leave the coat of sadness behind, what does that say about my love for Nathan? These have been my most painful innermost struggles in all of this. How do I move forward without hurting Nathan?

Dear Ones,
I think I have an idea. Our children are with the Lord in their glorified state. The state of Glory is so wonderful it is beyond anything we can imagine. Our children have experienced the presence of Glory. I am not certain if they can see us or not, but if they could see us, I doubt they would want to see us huddled in despair. They are in such holy presence that sadness does not exist. When we pick ourselves up and experience the color of life once again we do not offend or hurt them. If they could reach down to us and wipe our tears away. And in that moment we could see their sweet faces we would never feel guilty again.

We would see the safety that holds them every moment never letting go. We would see peace beyond peace. And I may be alone in saying this, but if I ever saw Nathan that safe and that happy with my own eyes I would send him back up on a very chubby cloud.

Shaken

There are times when the pressure behind my eyes is to great a thing. It comes mostly at bed time. When I close my eyes it is impossible to not see sad images. The harder I try to push them out the more they seem to stay. A lot of the times it is flashes of my hospital stay or Nathan's funeral. I say flashes because the whole scenario seemed like an out of body experience at times. Sometimes I only have pieces in my mind. Other things jump out at me and I remember every horrible detail. I work very hard to control my thoughts and focus on the positive. Most of the time this is when I write to you all. I also read book after book. There is a constant flow of the written word in my life. It does help distract my mind.

But there is this horrible image I just cannot shake. No matter how many blogs, or late night prayers, this horrible image of the nurse shaking my belly that hits me every night like clockwork. It is a terrible memory and has been very traumatic for me. Why do they do this? I get the idea of it, move the belly, and the baby will move. But what about the times when the baby does not move? What about the effect this has on the mother? This is what I remember most. I cannot speak for every mother, but I would bet that this is the one thing they remember most. It is that moment when you realize what they are checking for. In that moment you hold your breath, and are not sure you will ever breath again.

But alas you do breathe again. It is a different way of breathing, but breath all the same. I think a lot about that moment. That is when I knew in my heart that He was gone. Before all the monitors and machinery. I guess I knew because a mother just seems to know about her child. He always moved. He moved until he simply didn’t.

It is this particular memory where I struggle the most. Sometimes I wish I could wipe it from my memory. But I know I really wouldn’t. Because to wipe away any part it would take away from the time I had with Nathan. Unfortunately I must take the painful moments just as I do the wonderful. The painful ones are a part of my story as well, and just as important. The painful parts remind me that it was real. Nathan’s heart did beat and the silence of it in the end does not erase the beginning.

Sometimes late at night that is what I focus on. The beginning of Nathan….
And I can keep going because Nathan WAS before I even knew he WAS. He is such an important beginning and in Glory there is no end. He did not cease to exist, and no amount of shaking, can shake that he was “fearfully and wonderfully made” I carried Him and the LORD carried Him the rest of the way.