What do you know for sure that’s absolutely true?”
How many items would be on your list?
Most things in this world–institutions, organizations–the closer you examine them, the more they start to fall apart. If you look too carefully, you’ll see the holes. Sadly, the same is true of most people, not necessarily because they are evil or have nefarious purposes. They just aren’t true all the way through.
My kids grew up against a soundtrack of NPR news and commentary, played from a small clock radio in the kitchen. I appreciated the high quality of the reporting—and the BBC reporters’ plummy accents. Gradually, however, I began to notice a particular slant to every story, so now I get my (very limited!) news input elsewhere.
Truth is important to everyone. Jesus connects our ability to know truth with our ability to experience freedom: “You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free” (John 8:32). He calls himself the Truth (John 14:6), and certainly, the more you know about him, the more you will find him trustworthy and internally consistent. Jesus is who he says he is.
When you ask yourself, “What do you know for sure is true?” what do you come up with? The words and intentions of the people you love, a few math facts, and the details of your own life story may come to mind as immediate answers, but… Wait!
What do you know for sure that’s absolutely true? How many items would be on your list?
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In What the River Keeps, Hildy Nybo spends her days sorting through her memories and wondering what’s true. Detailed diaries protect the narrative flow of her days as a successful wildlife biologist, but always beneath the surface lies her confusion:
“All through my growing-up years, I lost things. Forgot where I put them. Not only that—I’d recall an event I absolutely believed was true only to be told otherwise, and when I’d hear what actually occurred, I couldn’t for the life of me find that sequence of events anywhere, anywhere in my memory.”
When a dream job near her hometown makes it possible for Hildy to oversee her aging mother’s care, she anticipates a quiet reentry with family and braces herself for the shadows to return. What she was not expecting, however, was a renovation project at her family’s rustic resort—led by a man battling his own shadows, but who seems to be finding the way toward freedom and truth.
Readers who carry the responsibility of caregiving will connect with the challenges Hildy and her family face. Too, Hildy’s ragged path to forgiveness and the restoration of her own story traces a healing and redemptive arc all the way to freedom.
What the River Keeps by cheryl_bostrom chronicles a ragged path to forgiveness and a healing and redemptive story arc all the way to freedom. @TyndaleHouse
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Holding You in the Light,
P.S. Cheryl’s last novel, Leaning on Air, made my list of favorite books from 2024! Details HERE!
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Living Our Days 
hi Michele,
I am currently studying through your YouVersion devotional. I have a group doing it together. We like it. Thank you!
Bless you and eyes on Jesus… you shine!
Lisa
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hi Michele,
I am currently studying through your YouVersion devotional. I have a group doing it together. We like it. Thank you!
Bless you and eyes on Jesus… you shine!
Lisa
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Lisa! That’s so good to hear! Thank you for letting me know.
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Oh that sounds like such an interesting book. It’s amazing how our minds and memories can play tricks on us and how easily they are reformed without us even realizing it! The more I keep learning about the workings of the brain and memory I think there are actually very few things I know for sure that are absolutely true.
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I especially see this when I compare notes with my sister. We grew up in the same house, but have such different memories!
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YES! It’s crazy that our whole family of 6 can sit around and all our memories are just slightly different.
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Your conversation above with Joanne, about the same people relating the same event remembering a slightly different version brought to mind something I read years ago that stuck with me. (It may have been in Lee Strobel’s book, The Case for Christ.) Some people find the various versions of the resurrection story in the four gospels to be off-putting. They ask, How can one set of facts be viewed differently by four different witnesses? Doesn’t that negate the truth of the event? Research has proven that it’s normal for different people to have different versions of the same event. If all the resurrection stories matched, THAT would actually be cause for concern. How wonderful that the gospels were never tampered with, to make them conform to one another!
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Yes, and how wonderful that God works within the personalities and writing styles of each of the Gospel-writers—as he does so graciously with us even today!
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What I know for sure to be absolutely true? I believe God’s word is absolutely true. All of it!
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Amen!
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