The Shack

I kind of figured this might be a little difficult, because I want to tell all about the book and how good it was. But at the same time, I don’t really want to give away the ending. So, ill try my best.

I’ll start with a little background;

William P. Young, the author of The Shack initially only printed fifteen copies of his book for friends and family who encouraged him to have it published. Later, after being turned down by Christian publishers because his book was too secular and being turned down by secular publishers because his book was to Christian, Young decided to publish the book himself in 2007. After only a year of word-of-mouth referrals his book eventually made its way to the New York Times trade paperback fiction best-seller list in June 2008.

The Shack begins with Mack and his three kids on what seemed to be a normal family vacation. Until something terrible happens. While Mack is sidetracked with two is his kids having a canoe accident, Mack’s youngest daughter, Missy, has been left unattended for just moments. During this time Missy has been abducted and later, there is evidence found in a shack deep in the Oregon wilderness that she may have been brutally murdered.

Four years later, in the midst of depression in Mack’s life, he receives a note apparently from God, which invites him back to the shack, the place he hates most, for a weekend.

Against his better judgment, he arrives at this shack on a cold wintry afternoon only to find the last thing he really expected

Turkey Day

Thanksgiving has always been a great day for me. I mean who wouldn’t love getting together with a ton of family that you don’t see that much and eating ridiculous amounts of food until you feel as if you are going to throw-up. I know I love it.

Thanksgiving is just a week away and I’m getting pretty excited. My grandparents are driving down from Maryland with there two dogs which will make for a pretty crazy house (though nothing compared to what Christmas is going to be like).

A couple memories I have of thanksgiving include; one year I had a really bad cold sore on the inside of my lip and it hurt more than anything! I was completely starving all day and every time I would try to eat my whole mouth would be in some serious pain. All Thanksgiving day I just sat around and watched other people enjoy everything that I love to eat so much. What a bummer….

Also something I love about turkey day is the football. There is always a good game on Thanksgiving and these days I’m pretty busy so I don’t always have a chance to sit around and enjoy watching this sport but on thanksgiving there is always time.

All in all I really love thanksgiving, probably not as much as Christmas and the day after Thanksgiving is going to be pretty killer (especially if you work at big lots) but it really is a great holiday to get with family and be thankful for all the great things we have.

Advancing Forward

This past weekend I went on a trip with my youth group to a retreat center known as A Place for the Heart wayyy out in Sophia N.C. It was a great weekend, full of great moments.

Most youth groups refer to these weekend trips as retreats because you retreat from all the things of the world and go out somewhere far away from your TV, computer and all that stuff and have a good time with God and friends. My youth group, on the other hand calls these getaways Advances. We do this because though we are retreating from everything bad, we are also advancing in our relationship with God.

A Great Trip

A coupe years back Louisiana, and a couple surrounding states got smashed by the hurricane known as Katrina. With millions of dollars in damage and tons of homes completely demolished, the residents of these southern states needed some serious help. So my youth group decided to take a trip down to southern Louisiana to a city called lake Charles. Here we would help some of the residents there doing whatever was needed of us.

Man’s Best Friend

Ever since I was young I have always wanted a dog. I mean, there mans best friend what kid would not want a dog. But time and time again I would hear the same response from my parents. They would tell us how after a couple of weeks they would be the only ones that would feed, walk, bathe and clean after it. Which though we could kind of see that happening we still begged all of the time. Another reason they said no was, we used to have a couple dogs way back in the day before I was born(lucky me) and I guess that they had had some bad experiences such as having a mean dog or having a really sweet one that everyone loved and it getting run over in front of our house. So yeah it wasn’t looking to good. That is until we got a call from my older brother.

The Beginning of the End

It all started some two and a half years ago. I had just turned 15 and I really needed a way to earn some extra money because I was anxious to start saving up for a car by the time 16 and a drivers license came around. Due to both of my brothers working at Subway and having decent reputations as good workers (well one of them at least…). I decided that I would try and apply. Soon after I applied I heard from one of my brothers that they were probably going to hire me. Sure enough I got a call a little later and within hours I was up at Oak Hallow Mall in front of Subway talking with the manager. She thought I would do all right so I had the job. I was pretty excited. I mean what more could you ask for than messing around with delicious food all day long.

A Pretty Bad Night

I remember it like it was yesterday. I had a couple friends over to spend the night. Late that night we went out side to do something and I saw a car speed away at the end of my driveway. So me being curious, I walked down my driveway (which is kind of long) to where I keep my car parked and saw that my car door was open. I didn’t think fast enough to put two and two together and run and see what the car that sped away looked like, so I just walked up to my car only to find a bunch of wires spilling out from where my CD player used to be and my dash board compartment down with nothing in it. Then a terrible thought entered my head. I had left my iPod in that compartment.

Just like that my CD player and my iPod(which I had only owned for a couple months) where gone. Now, I’m a pretty chill guy, I don’t get mad that much, but right now I was probably the maddest I have ever been. If any one else has had something they love stolen from them I’m sure you can relate. It sucks, because you know that the person who has it now is totally enjoying it like you SHOULD be doing.

Now I never did get my stuff back (even though I filed a police report and all that good stuff) but I later came to realize that it’s not that big of a deal. When you think about, all of our possessions are just for this lifetime, which will seem like a nanosecond compared to eternity. So next time you get something like your iPod stolen just remember, you will probably have like 6 iPods in heaven.

One Wing To Rule Them All

So it started one normal day just me and some of my friends hanging out and us being very bored we decided to spice up our night a little. Literally.

We all decided that it would be fun to go on over to Eat Coast Wings and try there hottest wing they have: The Insanity Wing. Now going into this I knew it was going to be hot but I was like ehhh, whatever, it can’t be that bad….. But it was. Now, I’m not trying to be a baby or anything I mean, I have heard of people eating this thing and being like “Oh it wasn’t that hot at all and stuff like that but no, this wing is ridiculous. You must be 18 or older(I was 16… they forgot to check I guess.) To make things better, you have to sign a wavier which said that the wing is 100 times hotter than a jalapeño.. Also they only allow people to have one wing. That is all, just one. So there I am, sitting in this restaurant with about 4 of my friends who have all vowed to finish the whole entire wing. Not just take a bit and give up. After a couple minutes of anxious waiting they arrived. It didn’t even look good. It was really black looking, and covered in powder. I took a sniff and it burnt my nostrils. I was a bit worried.

One Crazy Trip to Linville Gorge

After about a hour or so of hiking a easy 1 or 2 mile hike downhill to the gorge we still had some remaining energy with which we all enjoyed pitching our tents and exploring and such. Later that evening one of the people that went on the trip (a less “experienced backpacker”) made a suggestion that in the morning instead of first hiking back to the trail, then going up the switch backs all the way up to the parking lot, that we should just hike straight up the mountain. (Now this is where we went wrong) All of us who by then were a bit sore from the hike down where kind of hoping a maybe a little bit easier of a way out. Because from where we were it looked as if we could see the top and it didn’t look too far. So we all agreed to go for the challenge.

The next morning after we had all packed up and eaten some breakfast we took off on our crazy adventure. Now let me remind you that instead of hiking up the perfectly good trail all of us lazy campers decided to go straight up the mountain with no trail at all(bush-whacking). So about half way of hiking through thorn bushes and who knows what to what we see as the top, we started regretting what we hade done. Finally we got the end but only to find out that this was not the top at all but there was a lot more to the top. Later, we got to that top to realize again that this was not the top either. So after five or so hours of very frustrating hiking we finally reached the dirt road that ran along the top. We were extremely relived and we all threw our backpacks and laid out in the grass it was the best feeling ever. Although we all still refer to the trip as the worst trip ever. ( and we still say very mean things to the guy who’s idea it was to go straight up) I still look at it as something that I’m proud to have accomplished.