Hmmm…

Pastor Roger had sent this to Brenda and me by e-mail in response to our recommending “The Shack” as a great read. It was so interesting and insightful I asked if I could pass it on to all of you. Enjoy!

Hmmm…

“The Shack” you say, yes that’s a strange one. It sure makes you think.

I had mixed feeling as I read it. But it was strange; it’s one of those rare books that’s hard to put down. For what ever it’s worth here’s what I got out of it. The Bible begins with this thought. “So God created man in His image.” And I began to wonder, “Are we trying to create a God in our image?

But then who could swallow a large black woman who made everyone pancakes for breakfast as being God?

And then a few days later I gave the book away, because some one had given it to me. Then we got hit by an emotional and spiritual truck, Patty had cancer, now where’s God when you really need him, and if He’s any where near, what’s he up to?

Then after what seemed to be a hundred or so doctor visits and test, Patty began her treatments, it was a trip to the cancer center in Greeley every day for six weeks for radiation treatment and then the chemo. Treatment it just went on all summer.

But here’s the strange part; you’d never believe the people we began to meet.

There was this one young man taking chemo. Every day, day after day, five hours a day. One day as he was having his treatment’s they threw him a party, his wife delivered a baby boy that morning. All the doctors and nurses they went out of their way to celebrate

With him, it sure made his day.

And then there was this young lady from the Fort Morgan area, she had traveled all around the world, then cancer hit her real hard, she was taking radiation and chemo. Treatments, she had lost all her hair and her strength, yet she was happy, thoughtful, and full of encouragement, you’ll get through this she kept saying. It got so we looked forward to seeing her. And there were so many others, I met a man who is my neighbor, he lives just down the road, he’s retired and spends most of his time transporting his neighbor to the cancer center. And another lady who needed a ride and we were able to take her with us several times, how rare is her faith, she was full of happiness and encouraging words, why this cancer, it’s just one of those things that will pass on.

Then one day as Patty was taking treatment, my son David and I we stepped out in the waiting area, and in walks this young man I knew. I really did not feel like taking to him, why everyone knew he was just a bum, about six years ago he came roaring down our road and slammed his pickup right through the side of a stock trailer full of cows. He was so drunk he could not walk. The police took him to jail; good for them I thought, hope they throw the keys away; the whole community knew he was no good.

But he came over and began to talk with us, seems his father had cancer, he had come home for a few days to help him, and guess what, he was now a pastor out in California, and boy was he excited about his church. He had received Christ in some little church over in Hillrose, of all the places, who would have thought it could happen there?

And right there in front of all those people, he wanted to pray for us, and he did. As they walked away my son David turned to me and said, Dad I don’t now what this means but while he was praying I think God said, Mom will not die of this.

And right then a nurse came rushing up to us and said come with me your wife is having a bad reaction to her treatment. They had already called for an ambulance to take her around to the emergency room; her blood pressure had dropped to almost nothing, she was not responding, it really looked bad. As the day wore on all of the family and many friends began filtering into the emergency waiting room. But my son David he went from person to person telling them God said it would be ok, she would not die. And about midnight the doctor said I don’t know how it’s happened, but Patty was Ok, and the next day they sent her home. My son David and I, we had met God, he came in the form of a wild young man who liked to break up cattle trucks with his pickup And then there was all those others that we met along the way, nurses that would gather around Patty and pray before every treatment, right there in front of every one in the cancer treatment room, some times ten or fifteen other patients.

It’s hard to put it all down. God showed up in so many people and in so many delightful ways.

Oh yes back to the book, “The Shack” a few days later it was rudely shoved back into my hands and I was told , this is full of the Devil and witchcraft, don’t give me any more of your books. Golly, I hope for the sake of the church in America, Gods not a big black woman who likes to fix breakfast for everyone, why, I would bet, a whole lot of them would walk right out of heaven and not come back.

Roger