Has anyone read The Shack? If so, I would love your feedback on it.

I read it a few months ago, and have mixed opinions about it. There were a few things that I did absolutely love about it. I thought the metaphor of the garden and it's state, used as the character's life, was beautifully chosen and laid out.

Isn't it true with our own lives? How can one garden produce so much distinctive fruit and fragrant flowers, yet laterally, lifeless weeds lay by vacant and exposed soil?

I had a lifeless and vacant week last week. Some would call it a "funk". After much self-seeking (duh, that answers the problem right there!), it was brought to my attention this morning that life is not, in fact, about me. I can not control everything, nor can I find peace and joy through self-gratification. It revolves around Him. It revolves around His greatest command, to love. In all sensibility, love. Without expectations, without apprehensions, love. And as fast and startling as the snap of fingers, I realized I had gone an entire week without giving pure and honest love.

How's that for exposed? :-)

"Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. "

I Corinthians 13 4-7