Content Warning: The entry “Making Sense of Suffering” references violence against a child.

The theme that drives the narrative of The Shack is the quest to make sense of suffering. The backstory to Mack’s weekend at the cabin is a story of immense suffering, in which his young, innocent daughter Missy is abducted and brutally murdered. The way in which this happens—while Mack is saving his other children from danger—makes it seem like an especially cruel twist of fate. Reflecting on the terror and pain of Missy’s experience and his own unspeakable grief, Mack is left to wonder if there is any meaning behind it all and how a loving and powerful God could possibly let such a tragedy happen. Mack expresses these doubts throughout most of the narrative, all the way up to his encounter with Sophia (divine wisdom) in Chapter 11, where he angrily reflects on Missy’s death and concludes that God cannot really be a God of love: “I don’t believe that God loves all of his children very well!” (156).

The Shack explores this theme through three main avenues. First, it considers the ways that God’s sovereignty interacts with human choices.