PART 3
Review
The Tipping Point C3
C3 – 2nd half – starts the morning of their last day at the camp site with lots of fun festivities. Kate & Josh after finishing up their chores.. asked for one last canoe trip in the water.. they went…. Missy was busy coloring at a nearby picnic table while Mack continued to pack up the site. A few moments later – Kate & Josh paddled by.. yelling and waving to their father… suddenly the canoe flipped – Mack ran immediately to the water… Kate quickly came up – both her and Josh had their life jackets on.. Frantic by this point seeing that Josh had not surfaced, mack jumped in to find his son.. his life jacket strap had gotten caught on the canoe netting - eventually Mack was able to get him lose..by pushing the canoe over – only realizing later that he had to have had help from some angels… once on shore, he immediately began mouth-to-mouth on his son..Josh finally began to cough, throw up.. breathe again.. All the other campers in the vicinity had come to help.. and everyone began to cry, laugh and hug knowing that everyone was again safe and sound……… a potential crisis had been averted… or so Mack thought…
After all the commotion had passed, Mack realized Missy was nowhere in sight.. back to the picnic table.. where she had been coloring earlier.. no Missy… A huge search followed.. everyone in the camp joined the search… then the police were called in.. clues were found and discussed .. including someone who saw a green truck and a man with a little girl in a red dress….. Mack felt paralyzed.. sick.. back at the picnic table they found a small ladybug pin . stuck through some pages of the coloring book. The pin pointed to a man called the ‘littlelady killer’.. abducted and killed 4 girls so far… each time.. he adds a dot to the ladybug and leaves it behind.
After investigating and tracking.. they finally found something and asked Mack to come to identify what they found.
They drove him to a small shack..deep in the woods.. There in the shack on the floor by the fireplace lay Missy’s torn blood-soaked red dress.
For Mack, the next few days and weeks were an emotion-numbing blur! The littlelady killer was now credited with taking his firth victim, Missy Anne Phillips… The remaining pages in this chapter give us a glimpse into how people deal with suffering, tragedy, pain, emotion.
Mack at some point attempted to emerge from his own grief to be there for his wife and children. He was very concerned about Kate who seemed to have been affected the most…
I. There are different ways people deal with pain
1. drown it (Ever hear this question from other believers when they are going through painful experiences? - "What do people do without Jesus in these painful times?" "I cannot imagine getting through this without the Lord". Well... I'll tell you exactly what they do: they drink, they drug, have sex, shop, work - anything to drown out pain and reality if only for a moment).
2. run from it (avoid/pretend it doesn't exist, move away, distract with something, relationship, etc)
What did Kate do? What do we do oftentimes?
3. withdraw… why? fear of pain confusion False guilt – Why did Kate feel guilty? She felt responsible for the canoe fiasco.. if that hadn’t happened, Missy would still be alive were her thoughts
4. dealing with pain or avoiding it can lead to depression – explain difference between clinical depression (get stuck- physiological) and situational depression (move through it - based on circumstances - normal response)
5. anger
What about Josh?
6. Josh reached out.. he made phone calls.. communicated through e-mail.. shared his feelings – an outlet for his grief was friends… friends who gave him time and space to grieve.
Romans 12:15 NIV Rejoice with those who rejoice; mourn with those who mourn.
Dealing with the pain as a couple: Mack & Nan – they weathered the loss together.. and in some ways were closer for it eventually.
Individually: Mack – struggled with guilt even though Nan made it very clear from the start she did not blame him in any way… it took much longer for Mack to let himself off the hook… He was getting stuck in the …."if only" game that was a slippery slide into despair which is another way people deal with tragedy..
Play the "If Only" game (get stuck in regret):
- IO he had decided not to take the kids on that trip
- IO he had said no when they asked to use the canoe
- IO he had left the day before
- IO IO IO
II. Potential Negative Impacts of Tragedy
1. wall yourself off from pain – self-protection strategies (withhold our heart and emotions)
2. creates a rift between you and others
3. creates a rift between you and God
Mack – created an even greater rift than the one that already existed between him and God. Mack just ignored this growing sense of separation.. he embraced a stoic, unfeeling faith… and even tho he found some comfort and peace in that kind of faith, it never stopped the nightmares where his feet were stuck in the mud and his soundless screams could not save his precious Missy. The dreams were becoming more infrequent after a few years and moments of laughter and joy were returning but… he felt guilty when they did.
So…. Back to Chapter 1 – when Mack rec’d the note from Papa telling him to meet back at the shack, it was no small event. His thoughts – Does God even write notes? Why in the world would he want to meet me at the shack – the icon of my deepest pain? Ever been there? there is a haunting.. you know that God keeps asking you to go back in your mind to a place of pain? Where you were hurt... Where you were left confused…….. not understanding why.
Mack's mind went to other places… perhaps this was a cruel joke… perhaps it was a set up by the murderer.. to do him harm or to lure him away from his family to harm them? What kind of thoughts do you have when God asks you to do something that seems out of the ordinary.. you don’t get it.. or you don’t want to do it? Could it be our self talk getting in the way from our prior experiences.? Or.. perhaps it is spiritual warfare ..
(1 Peter 5:8 NIV
Be self-controlled and alert. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour.
the enemy does not want you to deal with any of this.. he definitely doesn’t want any rift to be dealt with bet. us and God. (enemy of our souls).
Fight by: James 4:7 NIV
Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.
Back to Mack....Try as he might, he couldn’t escape the desperate possibility that the note could have really come from God – even if passing notes didn’t sit well with his theological background and training.. He was taught in seminary that God had stopped any overt communication… the only way he spoke was through the sacred Scriptures.. God’s voice had been reduced to paper and even that paper had to be deciphered by the proper authorities and intellects.
The more Mack tried to figure things out.. the more he thought about all of this .... the more confused and irritated he became? Been there?
But.. in spite of his anger and depression, Mack knew he needed some answers. He was stuck. Sunday prayers and hymns weren’t cutting it anymore.(if they ever really had). Been there?
Cloistered.. organized spirituality/ religion seemed to change nothing in the lives of the people he knew.. except maybe Nan. But she was special…God might really love her. She wasn’t a screw up like Mack. Ever had these kind of thoughts?
Mack was sick of God and God’s religion.. sick of all the little religious social clubs that didn’t seem to matter or make a difference or affect any real changes. Mack wanted more… hmmm (Proverbs 8:17 NIV
I love those who love me, and those who seek me find me.
Jeremiah 29:13 NIV
You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.
Isaiah 1:18 NIV
"Come now, let us reason together," says the LORD. "Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red as crimson, they shall be like wool.
Come with our complaints, our anger, our huts, our sin...
Yes.. Mack wanted more and he was about to get much more than he bargained for…..
III. Healthy Response to Tragedy:
This can only happen with the kind of relationship Nan has with God – Papa I believe she drew close to God.. didn’t run from her pain… sought the truth out in God’s word and hearing His voice…. Listening and allowing words like Psalm 18:28 "You, O LORD, keep my lamp burning; my God turns my darkness into light."... to touch her heart… and…Psalm 73:26 "My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever." John 16:33 Jesus said, "I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world."
Nahum 1:7 "The LORD is good, a refuge in times of trouble. He cares for those who trust in him?
The Great Sadness C4 – “Sadness is a wall between two gardens.” - Kahlil Gibran
What do the gardens represent? What is the wall of sadness?
www.lifecarechristiancenter.org
GROUP WORK
LESSONS FROM THE SHACK
PART 3
1. Discuss the different ways the family members responded to tragedy. Which do you relate to the most?
2. Discuss the potential negative impacts of tragedy. Have you experienced any of these? Share.
3. What was Mack fighting against in his own mind when considering God’s invitation to the shack?
4. Share Scriptures that may have been instrumental in helping you through difficulties in this past year.
Series Challenge: Read the Shack
1 comments:
your quote from the Shack: He was taught in seminary that God had stopped any overt communication… the only way he spoke was through the sacred Scriptures.. God’s voice had been reduced to paper and even that paper had to be deciphered by the proper authorities and intellects.
from beginning to
end, The Shack has a quietly subversive quality to it. The author very subtly criticizes many aspects of the church and contemporary Christianity before replacing the concepts he criticizes with new ones. He criticizes seminary education; the Bible (as referenced above), etc
this
statement from page 119 serves as an apt description of many of the book's subtle undertones: “I will tell you that you’re going to find this day a lot easier if you simply accept what is, instead of trying to fit it into your preconceived notions.” Though we certainly do need to maintain some objectivity when we study Scripture, God has also told us many things with certainty and we need to cling tightly to these. Many preconceived notions are
theologically sound and informed by biblical truth. The reader of The Shack must be careful that he does not simply accept “what is,” at least as William Young describes it, without critical thinking and spiritual discernment.
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