The Shack

Mack awakes the following morning to find Papa there, who now appears as a dignified, older Indigenous American man wearing hiking clothes. Having found some reconciliation with his own father, Mack can now experience Papa as a father as well. They pick up a rolled-up pack that Sarayu has prepared for them and head out onto a nearby trail. As they walk, Mack notices that someone has marked this barely discernable path with small red markings, only noticeable if one is looking for them. They talk about Missy as they walk, and for the first time, Mack can express loving trust in Papa. Papa reveals that he is going to show something to Mack that will be very difficult but will ultimately provide healing. Before he can do that, though, there is still one more thing that darkens Mack’s heart. Mack discerns that this last remaining issue is about forgiveness—specifically, forgiving the man who kidnapped and murdered Missy. Papa explains that forgiveness is not the establishment of a relationship with the murderer but simply the act of letting go of the hatred that destroys Mack’s own capacity to experience joy, trust, and love. Eventually, after many tears, Mack gets to the place where he can speak his forgiveness for the murderer—not condoning his actions, but relinquishing Mack’s own burden of hate.

After this, Papa reveals that the purpose of their hike is to find Missy’s body and bring it back for burial. He leads Mack to a hidden cave where they find Missy’s remains. They wrap the body in a sweet-smelling sheet of flowers and spices that Sarayu placed in the pack, and then they carry her back down the trail.

When Mack and Papa arrive back at the cabin with Missy’s body, Mack sees that the project Jesus has been working on all weekend is a beautifully wrought coffin in which to place Missy’s remains. It is carved with scenes from Missy’s life, which Missy herself chose and instructed Jesus to include. Closing the box, they carry it out to the garden and place it in the spot that Mack helped Sarayu to clear the day before. Sarayu sings a song of Missy’s own composition, and then they lay Missy’s remains to rest. Sarayu dispenses on that spot a few of Mack’s tears, which she had earlier collected, and immediately a tree sprouts and bursts into bloom. “It is a tree of life, Mack,” Sarayu says, “growing in the garden of your heart” (234).

Back in the cabin, Papa tells Mack that if he wants to, he can stay with them and join Missy, or he can go back to his normal life. He makes his decision to return, and having done so, Sarayu reveals something that will help him heal his daughter Kate’s heart: the fact that Kate blames herself for Missy’s death. A bit later, after lying down and falling asleep, Mack suddenly awakes back where he started, in the dilapidated shack with icy wilderness all around. He hikes back to where he parked his borrowed vehicle and begins driving home, but as he passes through an intersection, another driver runs a red light and smashes into him. Mack is knocked unconscious and life-flighted out to a hospital.

Mack awakes in the hospital four days later to find his family around him, all clearly delighted that he is responsive again. He is startled to hear from Nan that his accident occurred on Friday, not on Sunday as he assumed (having spent the entire weekend at the cabin with Papa, Jesus, and Sarayu). Mack recounts the story to Nan, and although she is skeptical at first, little by little she entertains the possibility that Mack had a real encounter with God. She agrees to let Mack talk to Kate, and when their daughter approaches, Mack gently lets her know that Missy’s death was not her fault. For the past few years she has believed that if she never raised her paddle to catch her father’s attention, he wouldn’t have had to leave Missy at the picnic table and none of it would have happened.

After his release from the hospital, Mack contacts a law enforcement officer who helped search for Missy. Mack takes him along the trail that Papa showed him, all the way up to the cave where Missy’s remains were. Mack has to go through some questioning as to how he came upon the evidence, but the pattern of clues he uncovers allows investigators to track down the bodies of the other murdered girls and even to arrest the Little Ladykiller himself.