It is every parent’s worst nightmare. While on a camping trip with his three children, a man rushes to rescue his son, who was boating on the lake — and when he returns to the campsite, his youngest daughter, Missy, has vanished.
This is the premise of "The Shack," a film based on the best-selling book — which interested me because my ever-growing prayer list includes parents who've lost children.
As the movie progresses (spoiler alert), we watch with horror as the police take the grief-stricken father to an abandoned shack deep in the woods — where the blood-stained dress of his little girl lies crumpled on the floor.
The whole family is rocked by sorrow and guilt — the father blames himself for leaving Missy alone; the mother agonizes because she didn’t go on the trip; the older daughter blames herself for causing the boat to capsize.
One wintry day, the father, Mack, receives a mysterious note signed “Papa” — the name his wife uses for God — inviting him to the shack.
He journeys there, expecting to confront the killer — but instead he meets Papa, a middle-age black woman whose companions are a young Jewish man — Jesus — and a lithe Asian woman, the Holy Spirit.
Mack throws an angry accusation at Papa that surely anyone who’s lost a child can understand: “You didn’t cause it, but you permitted it.”
The big question — Why does God allow suffering, especially the death of children? — has torn the father apart.
In his book “The Question That Never Goes Away,” Philip Yancey tries to untangle the theological knot about suffering — including the agony of grieving parents.
When invited to speak to parents whose children died in the Sandy Hook shooting, he asks himself what Jesus would say to a bereaved mother.
Rather than murmur platitudes, Yancey attempts to embrace “the mother’s grief and assure her that God feels more grieved than she does.”
And instead of grappling with the “why” question — which could add salt to open wounds — he says that ministering to these parents means offering “a loving and sympathetic presence that may help … heal a broken heart.”
He mentions that God did not intervene in the Crucifixion: “Rather, what some meant for evil, God redeemed for good.”
In “The Shack,” Mack gets a gift that surely every bereaved parent longs for — a sighting of Missy as she exists in heaven.
He sees her frolicking in a lovely meadow with other children — and Jesus is there, too. She is clearly happy and she is free from suffering.
Why did Missy die before her time? Why did one couple on my prayer list lose a child to cancer, and another lose an infant?
We don’t get answers to every question. We don’t know why God created the world, why there are oceans, why there are stars — and why love is such a strong and enduring bond.
As St. Paul tells us, “For now we see through a glass darkly, but then face to face.”
Still, even in the face of mystery, we can trust that Jesus’ words are true. The kingdom of heaven really does belong to children — and faith means embracing the promise that assures us God will wipe away every tear.
Lorraine Murray’s latest book is a mystery set at a small church in Decatur. Her email is lorrainevmurray@yahoo.com.
