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Yes, we did make it home from Europe, but have fallen into a firestorm of emails and business arrangements that need my attention NOW! Almost takes all the joy out of coming home! Almost!

I leave for Orlando tomorrow, so things are a bit face-paced around here. But in the last week we’ve moved the movie production of THE SHACK a few more feet down the track and we are so excited at how that is shaping up. Kathie Lee Gifford on the TODAY show this morning gave it an exceptional summer-reading plug. TIME magazine has a blurb in their new issue, and we also have had interest for articles from Reuters, ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY, and PEOPLE. So the phenomena keeps unfurling. Who would have ever thought.

But here’s what I really wanted to share. I had a brief exchange with a lady named Vicky and I think it would be encouraging to others of you as well. This is what Father wants to do in our lives and he has a thousand ways to do it given our unique make up and circumstances.

Here’s the exchange:

I am a 49-year-old widow. Just a few months after his 44th birthday, my husband was diagnosed as being in the late stages of an insidious and deadly type of cancer. He died 49 days later. That was September 20, 2005. I spent two years utterly shattered by these events and am just now emerging from the shroud of this living death.

Last night I started reading So You Don’t Want to go to Church Anymore.

I am a performance-based believer (at least I think I’m a believer, plagued by doubts all the time), all my life trying to earn God’s love and attention. The idea of him as “Father” or “Dad” is totally foreign to me. I’ve always felt there that I’ve missed something, that something has failed to take root in my heart and I’ve just missed the point. Over the years I’ve alternated between being a good-Christian-Girl to being an outrageous party girl to getting into New Age stuff. I don’t want to live this way any longer. I want it to be real, and to know that I know that I know.

My biggest question is HOW? How do I just stop and let God love me? Last night I prayed that he will show me how to let him love me. How do I open up and let him be a Father to me?

My response: First let me say I’m sorry for the deep pain you’ve experienced. Unfortunately, it is not as uncommon in our day as people might think. Life is filled with pain, it’s just that lots of people have learned to hide it.

Secondly, I’d say to simply ask God to see his reality. You don’t let him love you. He already does. It’s just that you don’t see it yet. When you ask him to show you, he does the work to untangle you from the inside so that you can see that love. That process generally takes some time. So just wake up every day acknowledging his love for you. Ask him to show you a bit more every day….

A few things from the website that might help:

Listen to Transitions (free download).
Read HE LOVES ME (free download if you prefer).
You might also find some of our podcasts.
And if you haven’t yet, buy and read THE SHACK.

NONE of these will do it, of course. They will begin to help you carve out a mindset that will help you recognize Father’s working in you so that you can discover the unique way that Father wants to make himself known to you and in you.

And to that end, I pray that the eyes of your heart will be opened to behold all that this God has done for you and al that he wants to do in you to let you freely live as his daughter in the earth. It’s great stuff. Isn’t it amazing how he has already begun to draw you back to his side? He understands your pain, the places you’ve wandered, and now wants to get you on the track that matches the hunger he’s planted in your heart. And he’ll do it! He’s pretty good at what he does.

This is how she responded. And I love that God didn’t use any of the things I gave her, but simply made himself know in the reality of Vicky’s life.

A few weeks after your reply, my boss asked me to accompany him to his friend’s house to notarize some end-of-life documents. The man, like my husband, was stricken with an aggressive, deadly cancer and had only days to live. When we arrived, the wife was extremely distraught and I sat there and held her hand as she poured out her grief and fear over this imminent loss.

She was on my mind the rest of the day and it weighed heavy on me all that she was going though and the grief that lay ahead…and that evening I was reliving in my mind and spirit the days leading up to my own husband’s death. How even though he had betrayed me, I loved him, I couldn’t HELP but love him, I couldn’t just all of a sudden stop loving him even if I tried; and in fact, I would have gotten up on that bed and died in his place. Absolutely. Without question.

And then That Voice…the Voice that I know to be Jesus Voice…whispered to my heart “that’s how I feel about you and that’s what I did for you”. And my heart opened up to Him.

Finally. After nearly 50 years of trying to get Him to love me, trying to get MYSELF to love Him. Finally, ALL HIM. 100%. Not 99% God + 1% me. Which always ended up equaling exactly ZERO. Finally. All Him.

Do I sound giddy? I am!

One more picture! This was the view from our chalet last night in the village of Rougemont in the Swiss Alps.

Sara and I just returned from two days in that area with our hosts Silvio and Dominique Viotti. We have had a great time with this dear brother and sister and their family. We have laughed ourselves silly more times than I can count. A couple of years ago Silvio translated SO YOU DON’T WANT TO GO TO CHURCH ANYMORE into French and is just finishing up on HE LOVES ME. They have been warm and gracious to us and have showed us the incredible beauty of their country. They have also introduced us to a number of their friends on Sunday as we had a bbq out in a park and shared about Father’s life together.

Tomorrow Sara and I board a Swiss Air jet from Geneva for the flight home. I’ve been gone 3 weeks, traveled hundreds of miles and am looking forward to a night or two in my own bed at home.

Finally, we just found out that the NY Times published an article today on THE SHACK, which has now had four weeks at #1 on their Trade Fiction list. Christian Novel Is Surprise Best Seller traces the rise of THE SHACK by William P. Young, calling it “the most compelling recent example of how a word-of-mouth phenomenon can explode into a blockbuster when the momentum hits chain bookstores, and the marketing and distribution power of a major commercial publisher is thrown behind it.”

On Friday we hiked up to the rocky nob of the hill that you can see on the picture from my last blog. It is to the left above where we are staying. The view was breathtaking. The picture above is the view to the south and the picture below the view to the north of the small village where we have been staying. The weather has been fabulous, if a bit warm. Sunny every day and the landscape is green and luscious.

Today we are off to the Alps for a two-day expedition! This should be fun. Then, it is home on a big Swiss Air jet.

Sara and I left Germany this morning and arrived in Switzerland. The previous day we trained down to the southern border of Germany and were taken on a beautiful drive through the Black Forest. What a great time we had! Then this morning we took a train into Switzerland. That’s us outside the capital city of Bern before we spent the midday touring the city. We climbed to the top of the Cathedral tower in the background for a breathtaking, if not queasy, view of the area.

I had such a tremendous time in Germany. The ‘Jake’ book has become a huge seller there and most people I met with had already read it and were ready to interact with me about its content. I was so blessed by the people I met, the hunger they had, and their openness to follow Jesus instead of the rituals or demands of religion.

I love it that Jesus is stirring a common passion all over the world. It is not being led by any person, but the Holy Spirt is disillusioning people with the emptiness of our religious dogma and practice, to invite us into a real relationship with him. The only frustrating part of the trip was being unable to speak the language and not spending enough time in each place to get to know people as well as I hoped. But I was warmly and graciously received by people all over the country.

Now we are holed up in the village of Vallorbe along the French border west of Lausanne. This is the view out of the home we’re staying in. And what’s more, we actually get five nights sleeping in the same bed! How fun is that?

Still working my way through Germany. Sara arrived on Monday and we are enjoying this trip together now. We will be leaving Kaiserslautern today and head to Manheim. Then we have one more stop in Germany before we go to meet our friends in Switzerland. It has been an awesome trip so far. We’ve met lots of hungry people and have had some wonderful fellowship. I love how Father is calling people to himself in these days.

Here’s some items that might be of interest:

Our local paper out here ran an article about Windblown Media and The Shack. A lot of the facts in the story aren’t quite right, but the writer sure got the spirit of it. I thought some of you might enjoy reading it.

For those who have been waiting for an audio version of THE SHACK, it is now available both in a seven CD set and by Digital Download.

Also the ebook versions are done and will be available for Amazon’s Kindle and other ebook outlets on June 20.

I am barnstorming Germany at the moment. I took a long, restful train ride through the countryside yesterday from Hamlen to Nuremberg. What a beautiful country this is! Except for that brief respite, however, this has been a grueling trip because I am having less than 24 hours at almost all of the stops I’m making. One day is not enough time to really get to know people and get to the important questions that help us sort out what Jesus is doing in individual lives. I’d never schedule a tour myself like this because it is so frustrating not having time to get past the curiosity questions and share more deeply. But this is what I have.

Today I had a bit of a break and went down to see the parade ground where Hitler held his public rallies. We toured the museum there and learned how he built his power over people by marginalizing, excluding, and even exterminating anyone who didn’t show a passion for his rule or tactics. It was sobering. So much of the language we heard was similar to what’s going on from those inside organized religion who want to challenge anyone who dares to question its authority, methodology or effectiveness of teaching people how to live in Father’s love.

What I have enjoyed about the trip is not only those in their 50s and 60s who have found fresh life in Jesus, but also the number of young people here who are passionate about a greater life in Jesus. They are not so much burned out by the rituals of religion as much as they are hungry to know an authentic life in Jesus that they didn’t find there to begin with. In every meeting I’ve been to there has been young, hungry, engaged men and women who are looking for what life in Jesus is really all about. It has been so encouraging. The Spirit is calling to a new generation to come to him in the freedom of simply learning to live as the Father’s children in the earth and not get lost in the religious activity of generations that preceded them. Amazing!

This is what we must encourage not discourage. If you care about God’s church in the earth you will discourage them or try to bring them into conformity with our tired religious practices. Interestingly enough, I received this email over the last couple of days from Becky back in the States that seemed to address this very thing:

I’m a 23 year old Christian who left “the box” 2 years ago. I was raised in church and after witnessing 3 pastoral affairs and 2 church splits, I threw up my hands and walked away. If that was God, I didn’t want Him. I didn’t know what to do. My decision to leave the church was against everything I’ve been taught here in the Bible Belt, but at the same time it was a decision that felt as right as choosing God in the first place. Interestingly enough, I had my first real and authentic conversation with God after I left the church. Although it was mostly filled with anger, it was the first time I allowed myself to be real with God. I spent my entire life in this passive aggressive state because all the formulaic prayers and activities didn’t lead to the life the Bible talked so much about. It seemed no matter what I did, I couldn’t feel alive and whole like the Bible said….

Reading The Shack last year changed a lot. I have never felt such a sense of relief after reading something. If that God is who God really is, THAT’S a God worth worshipping! I no longer had to be someone I wasn’t in order to love Him. What a relief. And although I feel confident in my decision now more than ever, I still often struggle with it. If this mindset is true, then why is it a 23 year old in 2008 was the first to figure it out? And that’s where you come in…. I’m starting from the beginning on your podcasts and plan to listen to them all. I just have to say thank you. It’s nice to know people older, with much more wisdom, education, and experience feel the same way.

I hear this so often from people. Who am I to think that these systems might be leading us astray? Wouldn’t those who are more intelligent or more experienced see it before I do? And if people don’t put that on themselves, those who set themselves up as leaders will do it for them. I can’t tell you how many people have faced a dismissive attitude from an elder or pastor with the same comment: “Who are you to think you can hear God better than me? If God were speaking those things today, wouldn’t he say it to me first?”

My answer to Becky would be, “Why not you?” Why not a twenty-three year old girl who simply wants to know Jesus? When Jesus was here he was excited when the simplest people captured the vision for his kingdom. He greatly rejoiced before God at such moments, grateful that God had revealed himself not to the wise and learned who were so busy trying to keep people under their authority, but to common people and children.

Wouldn’t we want to ask ourselves why our so-called leaders discourage what Jesus so blatantly affirmed? I wonder.

So, why not Becky? She is his—beloved daughter of the Most High God. He knows where she is and how to bring her along to where he wants her to be.

Why would God show her what others have missed?

Maybe it’s because her simple heart is unclouded by the need to build a group of people into an efficient organization. Maybe it’s because she doesn’t draw her salary from the success of her program and ideas. And maybe her vocational success isn’t tied to corralling a group of people under her control. If the truth be told most of those leaders who discourage people like Becky one day began with a heart just like Becky’s before it got confused by the obligations of building a Christian organization.

I don’t know about you, but I’d rather rejoice with Becky and encourage her to keep going. Keep coming to him and follow him as best as you can see him. Feel free to make some mistakes in the process and he will teach you how to live in his freedom and his glory.

Why not her?

Why not you?

I’m off to Germany but completed a new issue of BodyLife. We haven’t had a new one since last September, because I’ve been way too busy with lots of other opportunities that this issue will explain.

The lead article is titled The Power of Living Loved and provides three snapshots of what it means to live in the love of the Father and how it transforms how we live on the earth.

There is also a lengthy announcement about some of the changes my life is undergoing in the aftermath of all the opportunities that the success of The Shack has opened to me. It also explains why you’ve not seen a new BodyLife since last September. There’s also some wonderful letters there from many of our readers who are also on some amazing journeys, as well as some new announcements of things going on around Lifestream.

We hope this issue encourages you to keep to the journey God has put before you and draw you into his life and grace.

Later today I’ll head off to the airport for a flight to Germany where I will spend the next three weeks wandering through Germany and into Switzerland to spend time with brothers and sisters on this marvelous journey. So You Don’t Want to Go to Church Anymore was released last year in German, and He Loves Me will be released this summer as Loved! (Pictured at left.)

It will take me longer to respond to email on a trip like this, because I neither have control of when i can access email, or when I have time to respond to it. I apologize for any inconvenience that causes.

Here is my schedule for that tour:

June 6-8: weekend with group in Lengerich, Germany
June 9-10: evening(s) with group(s) near Hannover, Germany
June 11-12: meeting(s) in Nuremberg, Germany
June 13: meeting in Karlsruhe, Germany
June 14: meeting near Stuttgart, Germany
June 15: group in Bonn, Germany
June 16-17: group near Kaiserslautern, Germany
June 18-19: near Zurich, Switzerland
June 20-25: Geneva, Switzerland

Keep me in prayer will you? Sara will be joining me part way through the trip as she finishes up here school term here at home.

Here is the maize our last contribution was able to purchase for the families who have been displaced by violence in Kenya. There are wonderfully grateful to all who helped sustain them in this time of great need:

Here in Kenya is 8:26am. Yesterday we managed to meet with the team and I went immediately to the store to buy the maize, which was 65 bags as you may see in the pictures and we worked until evening to make sure that it is clean which can be acceptable by health department and I have handed over to the selected team to make sure that they may distribute according to the list we have in our office and they will start tomorrow while I will be in the next town called Eldoret with some leaders in Kitale for ten days. May the Lord bless you; we shall be in touch soon as I return back as also sent to you the work done.

We were able to send another $2500.00 this week from those who sent in money, and some extra we had around here… I got this back from our contact there this morning:

The family and the entire team, greetings once more in Jesus Name. Thank you very much for the great support you send. Tomorrow I will have the working team to plan how we will distribute. My brother, may the Lord bless you and the entire team for the seed you have showed in Africa and in our beloved country for brothers and sisters for the situation where they are living. I think it will be great support for more families. We shall be in touch soon as we complete the audio downloads you put on the Internet for us. I will share with you soon.

We will continue to send more as Father provides.