The Shack (21 page)

“Yes, him too!”

“How far do we go back, Mackenzie? This legacy of brokenness goes all the way back to Adam, what about him? But why stop there? What about God? God started this whole thing. Is God to blame?”

Mack was reeling. He didn’t feel like a judge at all, but rather the one on trial.

The woman was unrelenting. “Isn’t this where you are stuck, Mackenzie? Isn’t this what fuels
The Great Sadness?
That God cannot be trusted? Surely, a father like you can judge
the
Father!”

Again his anger rose like a towering flame. He wanted to lash out, but she was right and there was no point in denying it.

She continued, “Isn’t that your just complaint, Mackenzie? That God has failed you, that he failed Missy? That before the Creation, God knew that one day your Missy would be brutalized, and still he created? And then he
allowed
that twisted soul to snatch her from your loving arms when he had the power to stop him. Isn’t God to blame, Mackenzie?”

Mack was looking at the floor, a flurry of images pulling his emotions in every direction. Finally, he said it, louder than he intended, and pointed his finger right at her.

“Yes! God is to blame!” The accusation hung in the room as the gavel fell in his heart.

“Then,” she said with finality, “if you are able to judge God so easily, then you certainly can judge the world.” Again she spoke without emotion. “You must choose two of your children to spend eternity in God’s new heavens and new earth, but only two.”

“What?” he erupted, turning to her in disbelief.

“And you must choose three of your children to spend eternity in hell.”

Mack couldn’t believe what he was hearing and started to panic.

“Mackenzie.” Her voice now came as calm and wonderful as first he heard it. “I am only asking you to do something that you believe God does. He knows every person ever conceived, and he knows them so much deeper and clearer than you will ever know your own children. He loves each one according to his knowledge of the being of that son or daughter. You believe he will condemn most to an eternity of torment, away from His presence and apart from His love. Is that not true?”

“I suppose I do. I’ve just never thought about it like this.” He was stumbling over his words in his shock. “I just assumed that somehow God could do that. Talking about hell was always sort of an abstract conversation, not about anyone that I truly . . .” Mack hesitated, realizing that what he was about to say would sound ugly, “not about anyone that I truly cared about.”

“So you suppose, then, that God does this easily, but you cannot? Come now, Mackenzie. Which three of your five children will you sentence to hell? Katie is struggling with you the most right now. She treats you badly and has said hurtful things to you. Perhaps she is the first and most logical choice. What about her? You are the judge, Mackenzie and you must choose.”

“I don’t want to be the judge,” he said, standing up. Mack’s mind was racing. This couldn’t be real. How could God ask him to choose among his own children? There was no way he could sentence Katie, or any of his other children, to an eternity in hell just because she had sinned against him. Even if Katie or Josh or Jon or Tyler committed some heinous crime, he still wouldn’t do it. He couldn’t! For him, it wasn’t about their performance; it was about his love for them.

“I can’t do this,” he said softly.

“You must,” she replied.

“I can’t do this,” he said louder and more vehemently.

“You must,” she said again, her voice softer.

“I . . . will . . . not . . . do . . . this!” Mack yelled, his blood boiling hot inside him.

“You must,” she whispered.

“I can’t. I can’t. I won’t!” he screamed, and now the words and emotions came tumbling out. The woman just stood watching and waiting. Finally he looked at her, pleading with his eyes. “Could I go instead? If you need someone to torture for eternity, I’ll go in their place. Would that work? Could I do that?” He fell at her feet, crying and begging now. “Please let me go for my children, please, I would be happy to . . . Please, I am begging you. Please . . . Please . . .”

“Mackenzie, Mackenzie,” she whispered, and her words came like a splash of cool water on a brutally hot day. Her hands gently touched his cheeks as she lifted him to his feet. Looking at her through blurring tears, he could see that her smile was radiant. “Now you sound like Jesus. You have judged well, Mackenzie. I am so proud of you!”

“But I haven’t judged anything,” Mack offered in confusion.

“Oh, but you have. You have judged them worthy of love, even if it cost you everything. That is how Jesus loves.” When he heard the words he thought of his new friend waiting by the lake. “And now you know Papa’s heart,” she added, “who loves all his children perfectly.”

Immediately Missy’s image flashed in his mind and he found himself bristling. Without thinking he lifted himself back onto the chair.

“What just happened, Mackenzie?” she asked.

He saw no use trying to hide it. “I understand Jesus’ love, but God is another story. I don’t find them to be alike at all.”

“You haven’t enjoyed your time with Papa?” she asked surprised.

“No, I love Papa, whoever she is. She’s amazing, but she’s not anything like the God I’ve known.”

“Maybe your understanding of God is wrong.”

“Maybe. I just don’t see how God loved Missy perfectly.”

“So the judgment continues?” she said with a sadness in her voice.

That made Mack pause, but only for a moment. “What am I supposed to think? I just don’t understand how God could love Missy and let her go through that horror. She was innocent. She didn’t do anything to deserve that.”

“I know.”

Mack continued on, “Did God use her to punish me for what I did to my father? That isn’t fair. She didn’t deserve this. Nan didn’t deserve this.” Tears streamed down his face. “I might have, but they didn’t.”

“Is that who your God is, Mackenzie? It is no wonder you are drowning in your sorrow. Papa isn’t like that, Mackenzie. She’s not punishing you, or Missy, or Nan. This was not his doing.”

“But he didn’t stop it.”

“No, he didn’t. He doesn’t stop a lot of things that cause him pain. Your world is severely broken. You demanded your independence, and now you are angry with the one who loved you enough to give it to you. Nothing is as it should be, as Papa desires it to be, and as it will be one day. Right now your world is lost in darkness and chaos, and horrible things happen to those that he is especially fond of.”

“Then why doesn’t he do something about it?”

“He already has . . .”

“You mean what Jesus did?”

“Haven’t you seen the wounds on Papa too?”

“I didn’t understand them. How could he . . .”

“For love. He chose the way of the cross where mercy triumphs over justice because of love. Would you instead prefer he’d chosen justice for everyone? Do you want justice, ‘Dear Judge’?” and she smiled as she said it.

“No, I don’t,” he said as he lowered his head. “Not for me, and not for my children.”

She waited.

“But I still don’t understand why Missy had to die.”

“She didn’t have to, Mackenzie. This was no plan of Papa’s. Papa has never needed evil to accomplish his good purposes. It is you humans who have embraced evil and Papa has responded with goodness. What happened to Missy was the work of evil and no one in your world is immune from it.”

“But it hurts so much. There must be a better way.”

“There is. You just can’t see it now. Return from your independence, Mackenzie. Give up being his judge and know Papa for who he is. Then you will be able to embrace his love in the midst of your pain, instead of pushing him away with your self-centered perception of how you think the universe should be. Papa has crawled inside of your world to be with you, to be with Missy.”

Mack stood up from the chair. “I don’t want to be a judge any more. I really do want to trust Papa.” Unnoticed by Mack, the room lightened yet again as he moved around the table toward the simple chair where it all began. “But I’ll need help.”

She reached out and hugged Mack. “Now that sounds like the start of the trip home, Mackenzie. It certainly does.”

The quiet of the cavern was suddenly broken by the sound of children’s laughter. It seemed to be coming through one of the walls, which Mack could now clearly see as the room continued to brighten. As he stared in that direction, the stone surface grew increasingly translucent and daylight filtered into the cave. Startled, Mack peered through the haze and finally could make out the vague shapes of children playing in the distance.

“Those sound like
my
kids!” Mack exclaimed, his mouth open in astonishment. Moving to the wall, the mist parted like someone had drawn a curtain and he was unexpectedly looking out across a meadow, back toward the lake. In front of him loomed the backdrop of high snow-covered mountains, perfect in their majesty, dressed in heavily wooded forests. And nestled at their feet, he could clearly see the shack, where he knew Papa and Sarayu would be waiting for him. A large stream tumbled out of nowhere, directly in front of him, and flowed into the lake alongside fields of high country flowers and grasses. The sounds of birds were everywhere and the sweet scent of summer hung rich in the air.

All this Mack saw, heard, and smelled in an instant, but then his gaze was drawn to movement, to the group playing along an eddy near where the stream flowed into the lake less than fifty yards away. He saw his children there—Jon, Tyler, Josh, and Kate. But wait! There was another!

He gasped, trying to focus more intently. Moving toward them, he pushed up against an unseen force as if the stone wall were still invisibly in front of him. Then it became clear. “Missy!” There she was, kicking her bare feet in the water. As if she heard him, Missy broke from the group and came running down the trail that ended directly in front of him.

“Oh my God! Missy!” he yelled and tried to move forward, through the veil that held them separate. To his consternation, he ran into a power that would not allow him to get closer, as if some magnetic force increased in direct opposition to his effort, deflecting him back into the room.

“She cannot hear you.”

Mack didn’t care. “Missy!” he screamed. She was so close. The memory that he had been trying so hard not to lose but had felt slowly slipping away now snapped back. He looked for some kind of hand-hold, as if he could pry whatever it was open and find some way to get through to his daughter. But there was nothing.

Meanwhile, Missy had arrived and stood directly in front of him. Her gaze was clearly not at them, but at something that was in between, larger and obviously visible to her but not to him.

Mack finally quit fighting the force field and half-turned to the woman. “Can she see me? Does she know that I’m here?” he asked desperately.

“She knows that you are here, but she cannot see you. From her side, she is looking at the beautiful waterfall and nothing more. But she knows you are behind it.”

“Waterfalls!” Mack exclaimed, laughing to himself. “She just can’t get enough of waterfalls!” Now Mack focused on her, trying to memorize again every detail of her expression and hair and hands. As he did so, Missy’s face erupted in a huge smile, dimples standing out. In slow motion, with great exaggeration, he could see her mouth the words, “It’s okay, I . . .” and now she signed the words, “. . . love you.”

It was too much and Mack wept for joy. Still he couldn’t stop looking at her, watching her through his own cascading waterfall. To be this close again was painful, to see her stand in that Missy way, with one leg forward and a hand on her hip, wrist inward. “She’s really okay, isn’t she?”

“More than you know. This life is only the anteroom of a greater reality to come. No one reaches their potential in your world. It’s only preparation for what Papa had in mind all along.”

“Can I get to her? Maybe just one hug, and a kiss?” he begged quietly.

“No. This is the way that she wanted it.”

“She wanted it this way?” Mack was confused.

“Yes. She is a very wise child, our Missy. I am especially fond of her.”

“Are you sure she knows I am here?”

“Yes, I am sure,” she assured Mack. “She has been very excited for this day, to play with her brothers and sister, and to be near you. She very much would have liked her mother to be here too, but that will wait for another time.”

Mack turned toward the woman. “Are my other children really here?”

“They are here, but they aren’t. Only Missy is truly here. The others are dreaming and each will have a vague memory of this—some in greater detail than others, but none fully or completely. This is a very peaceful time of sleep for each of them, except Kate. This dream will not be easy for her. Missy, though, is fully awake.”

Mack watched every move his precious Missy was making. “Has she forgiven me?” he asked.

“Forgiven you for what?”

“I failed her,” he whispered.

“It would be her nature to forgive, if there were anything to forgive, which there is not.”

“But I didn’t stop him from taking her. He took her while I wasn’t paying attention . . .” his voice trailed off.

“If you remember, you were saving your son. Only you, in the entire universe, believe that somehow you are to blame. Missy doesn’t believe that, nor Nan, nor Papa. Perhaps it’s time to let that go—that lie. And Mackenzie, even if you had been to blame, her love is much stronger than your fault could ever be.”

Just then someone called Missy’s name and Mack recognized the voice. She shrieked with delight and started to run back toward the others. Abruptly she stopped and ran back to her daddy. She made a big embrace as if she were hugging him and, with eyes closed, overexaggerated a kiss. From behind the barrier he hugged her back. For a moment she stood completely still, as if knowing she was giving him a gift for his memory, waved, turned, and raced back to the others.

And now Mack could clearly see the voice that had called his Missy. It was Jesus playing in the middle of his children. Without hesitation Missy leaped into his arms. He swung her around twice before putting her back on her feet, and then, everyone laughed before hunting for smooth stones to skip across the surface of the lake. The voicing of their joy was a symphony to Mack’s ears, and as he watched, his tears flowed freely.