"The Shack" by William P. Young

Oh my goodness, I love this book! My Sissy told me about this book because "The Bishop" said it was a good book. So of course if Bishop Joseph said to read it, I read it.

This book is fiction but there is a tremendous amount of wisdom in this book.

First of all the book is about a man whose youngest daughter is abducted while on a camping trip. They find her body in an old abandoned shack. I was like why do I want to read this? This is awful!! But I pressed on and I am so glad I did.

About 4 years later the man gets a note from, Papa, his wife's name for God, telling him it is time for him to return to the shack. He has a hard time believing that God wants to meet with him, but curiosity causes him to go back and the adventure begins.

I am not going to give away the story, go get the book! But I will tell you that in his experience with, Papa, they have one particular conversation that really intrigued me. They were discussing good and evil in relationship to Adam and Eve eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. God asks the question "When something happens to you, how do you determine whether it is good or evil?" Mack, the main character, says, "I guess I would say that something is good when I like it-when it makes me feel good or gives me a sense of security. Conversely, I'd call something evil that causes me pain or costs me something I want." God then asks,"And how confident are you in your ability to discern what indeed is good for you, or what is evil?" Mack then goes into how somethings that seemed good in the beginning turned out to horrible and things that he deemed to be good turn out to be really bad. God then says, how mankind declared their independence from God when eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. We decided we would determine for ourselves what is good and what is evil apart from God. Then talks about now we need to give our right to be independent and to depend on God and believes that He knows what is good for us and what is evil for us.

This spoke volumes to me! I think all the "bad" that has happened to me and I look back and say that was "good" and all the things that seemed "good" and turned out to be "bad." This discussion goes on for like 5 pages and I didn't do it the justice it deserves. Please pick up this book.