Thanks to all of you who have commented on our Shack covers. That’s still a work in progress and as you can see perspectives and tastes really differ on such things. That’s why they call it art, not science. Tomorrow I’m off to Nashville for the weekend and then will arrive in the DC area by midweek. This is a combination trip of some household gatherings to encourage brothers and sisters on this journey and some high-level BridgeBuilders work with some of the leading advocates of the civil liberties of public education. I’m also meeting with some people who may help us expose The Shack to some people who can help us find its audience. This will be a crazy trip! I’m really not sure I’ll have much time to post here, so I hope you’ll understand and if you think of it, please be in prayer for me and the folks I’ll be near over the next few days. I’d appreciate it very much.
And I thought I’d leave you with this incredibly encouraging email in seeing how Father works. I got this a few of weeks ago and thought you’d be encouraged by God’s work in this man’s life:
I’m presently re-reading your book He Loves Me and and listening to your Transition CDs on moving beyond religious thinking to relational living. The timing of these has come in the course of a journey that I would not wish on anyone but would not trade for the world. Four years ago I was given 3-9 months to live by the oncologist with a crippling form of bone cancer called multiple myeloma. As a pastor for 20+ years with many of the same issues that you’ve revealed in your material I’m finding your addressing the subject of shame, in the way that you are, to be the solvent that is untangling all the newly found truth I’m learning and experiencing together. Judging from something that is literally melting inside me, this is truly powerful. The reality and magnitude of things even now given our current circumstances for both my wife and I, (her deteriorating health I believe due to stress and deficient thinking regarding His love) is in a category that only the Lord can mange. But we both, through a better understanding of Him are realizing more of the life and rest He would have us to have.
I could go on and on about the pivotal moments when the Lord did exactly as you highlight—exceedingly abundantly—but I know you know these kinds of things. But I will share one. The best story being that at the age 45 and 44 for my wife, He brought our only child into our lives through adoption six months before I was diagnosed. I laid there almost completely bedridden for nearly another six months weeping trying to figure why a God would take a fatherless child and transfer him to another fatherless home. Little did I realize how a child would inspire, influence, motivate, encourage, us both in the desire to live. He truly is the God of love, life and hope.
Thanks again from the bottom of our hearts and beyond!
