The Shack by William P. Young

• I suppose that since most of our hurts come through relationships so will our healing, and I know that grace rarely makes sense for those looking in from the outside.
• While some things may not be scientifically provable, they can still be true nonetheless.
• There is often some compensation in every trial, if one looked hard enough.
• It is so easy to get sucked into the if-only game, and playing it is a short and slippery slide into despair.
• There are times when you choose to believe something that would normally be considered absolutely irrational. It doesn't mean that it is actually irrational, but it surely is not rational. Perhaps there is supra rationality: reason beyond the normal definitions of fact or data-based logic; something that only makes sense if you can see a bigger picture of reality. Maybe that is where faith fits in.
• Sometimes honesty can be incredibly messy.
• As much as he longed to stop the ache in his heart, he knew he could not add to their hurt.
• It does a soul good to let the waters run once in a while--the healing waters.
• Don't go because you feel obligated. That won't get you any points around here. Go because it's what you want to do.
• Life takes a bit of time and a lot of relationship.
• Love always makes a significant mark.
• Humans are not defined by their limitations, but by the intentions that I have for them; not by what they seem to be, but by everything it means to be created in my image.
• It is not about winning and losing, but about love and respect.
• Once you begin to know the being behind the very pretty or very ugly face, as determined by your bias, the surface appearances fade away until they simply no longer matter.
• I am with you and I'm not lost. I'm sorry it feels that way, but hear me clearly. You are not lost.
• Dreams are sometimes important, you know. They can be a way of openin' up the window and lettin' the bad air out.
• I don't need to punish people for sin. Sin is its own punishment, devouring you from the inside. It's not my purpose to punish it; it's my joy to cure it.
• Humans have a great capacity for declaring something good or evil, without truly knowing.
• I tend to sound justifiably angry when somebody is threatening my 'good,' you know, what I think I deserve. But I'm not really sure I have any logical ground for deciding what is actually good or evil, except how something or someone affects me.
• Who doesn't jump to conclusions about others from the way they impact us.
• The darkness hides the true size of fears and lies and regrets. The truth is they are more shadow than reality, so they seem bigger in the dark. When the light shines into the places they live inside you, you start to see them for what they are.
• Each choice ripples out through time and relationships, bouncing off of other choices.
• You're only seeing the institution, a man-made system. That's not what I came to build. What I see are people and their lives, a living breathing community of all those who love me, not buildings and programs.
• You don't need to have it all figured out. Just be with me.
• I don't create institutions; that's an occupation for those who want to play God.
• If you try to live this without me, without the ongoing dialogue of us sharing this journey together, it will be like trying to walk on the water by yourself. You can't! And when you try, however well-intentioned, you're going to sink.
• All I want from you is to trust me with what little you can, and grow in loving people around you with the same love I share with you. It's not your job to change them, or to convince them. You are free to love without an agenda.
• Grace doesn't depend on suffering to exist, but where there is suffering you will find grace in many facets and colors.
• Guilt'll never help you find freedom in me. The best it can do is make you try harder to conform to some ethic on the outside. I'm about the inside.
• Lies are one of the easiest places for survivors to run. It gives you a sense of safety, a place where you only have to depend on yourself.
• Lies are a little fortress; inside them you can feel safe and powerful. Through your little fortress of lies you try to run your life and manipulate others. But the fortress needs walls, so you build some. These are the justifications for your lies. You know, like you are doing this to protect someone you love, to keep them from feeling pain. Whatever works, just so you feel okay about the lies.
• Nobody knows what horrors I have saved the world from 'cuz people can't see what never happened.
• Love that is forced is no love at all.
• It is not the nature of love to force a relationship but it is the nature of love to open the way.
• For you to know or not has nothing at all to do with whether I am actually here or not. I am always with you; sometimes I want you to be aware in a special way--more intentional.
• Emotions are the colors of the soul; they are spectacular and incredible. When you don't feel, the world becomes dull and colorless.
• Just because you believe something firmly doesn't make it true. Be willing to reexamine what you believe. The more you live in the truth, the more your emotions will help you see clearly. But even then, you don't want to trust them more than me.
• There are a lot of smart people who are able to say a lot of right things from their brain because they have been told what the right answers are, but they don't know me at all. So really, how can their answers be right even if they are right, if you understand my drift? So even though they might be right, they are still wrong.
• In Jesus you are not under any law. All things are lawful.
• Responsibilities and expectations are the basis of guilt and shame and judgment, and they provide the essential framework that promotes performance as the basis for identity and value. You know well what it is like not to live up to someone's expectations.
• Each relationship between two persons is absolutely unique. That is why you cannot love two people the same. It simply is not possible. You love each person differently because of who they are and the uniqueness that they draw out of you. And the more you know another, the richer the colors of that relationship.
• If Papa had wanted him to know, he would have told him.
• Forgiveness is not about forgetting. It is about letting go of another person's throat.
• Forgiveness does not create a relationship.
• Forgiveness in no way requires that you trust the one you forgive.
• Just say it out loud. There is power in what my children declare.
• If anything matters then everything matters. Because you are important, everything you do is important. Every time you forgive, the universe changes; every time you reach out and touch a heart or a life, the world changes; with every kindness and service, seen or unseen, my purposes are accomplished and nothing will ever be the same again.

5/17/2009--6:53 PM