'Can you keep it for me? All my best treasures are now hidden in you anyway. 'Actually, I don't think I'm going to need this anymore,' he said. Young writes, "Finally, Jesus stood and reached up to one of the shelves to bring down Mack's little tin box.Mack took it from Jesus and held it in his hands a moment. The tin box is not mentioned for most of Mack's time at the shack, but it appears in a significant way just as he is preparing to leave.
The tin box has come to represent the secrets and emotions Mack has bottled up inside because he is scared of hurting others or himself by revealing them. Later in the book, the reader finds that Mack still has the tin box, but now he keeps a picture of Missy and the note from God inside. At this point of life, when Mack is forced to live on his own and independently grapple with his strong emotions, the tin box represents Mack's lack of a home and a family. When Mack left home as a young boy, he took with him a "small tin box housing all his earthly treasures" (10), including a picture of his family, a baseball card, a small bottle of his mother's perfume, a needle and thread, a toy jet, and a little over $15. By looking at the shack as a symbol, one can see that Mack had to return to and confront his trauma and even find God precisely there, and after that he was able to lead a life of love and trust. In further writing and interviews since the publication of The Shack, Young has clarified and elaborated on the symbol of the shack, which is intended to represent the trauma or pain many people have standing between them and God. This reveals to the reader that the shack was never intended to refer to a real, physical place, since Young references finding grace there himself, when it was the character Mack who supposedly visited. In the Acknowledgements for The Shack, Young writes, "Most of us have our own grief, broken dreams, and damaged hearts, each of us our unique losses, our own 'shack.' I pray you find the same grace there that I did, and that the abiding presence of Papa, Jesus, and Sarayu will fill up your inside emptiness with joy unspeakable and full of glory" (252).
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