Three years ago, Mack took his youngest three children on a camping trip before school started again. His wife Nan, an oncology nurse had too many patients who needed her and their two oldest sons were in college. On the last day Kate and her older brother take out a canoe and call out to Mack who is watching his youngest Missy coloring at the table. In an instant, his world is upside down. When Kate calls out to him, the boat tips and Josh doesn't surface. Mack dives in to save his son. When Josh regains consciousness, a feeling of elation pervades the campsite until they realize Missy has disappeared. A search party is quickly formed, but it soon becomes apparent that there will be no happy ending. Now, Mack lives day to day and is enveloped in The Great Sadness and has lost the faith that helps sustain his wife and their kids. One day, alone while the family is on a trip, Mack finds a postcard in the mailbox inviting him to the shack where all his nightmares were realized and signed Papa, which is what Nan calls God. Angered, Mack decides to go and find out if it is the man who took away his youngest daughter. What he finds there is hard to believe and indeed is met with his resistance for quite a while.

I was hesitant to read this book because it was pretty wrought with angry reviews on Amazon, which also intrigued me a bit. But the book came highly recommended as well and my book club was insistent that this be our next pick. As much as I wasn't invested in the book, I tore through it and really changed my mind. The end was as heartwarming as a book with this subject matter could be. The message of the book was beautiful and apparently real as told to the author.