“That’s what I know.”

She works with me nearly daily and she makes that statement on the regular. To be completely honest she says it all the time, and I rarely pay attention to what she is actually saying. She uses it like a punctuation mark and I hear it as such. After all who announces their punctuation to their statements and questions?

“Have you done your chores question mark”
“I had no idea you today was your birthday exclamation point”
“The car is making a funny noise period”

I am thankful in the English language our tone of voice, inflection, and context do that for us.

That particular day as she said, “That’s what I know.”

Something made me actually hear the words she was saying and not the intended punctuation.

I have no idea what she was talking about but I clearly heard her say, “That’s what I know.”

Perhaps it was the chatter about the once every 12 years 27th upcoming pay week. Maybe it was the talk of the upcoming holiday break plans, the visit from a family member, the insurmountable work that lay ahead of her, or the lunch choices in the cafeteria.

Ironically I do not know what it is she knows.

So when she proclaimed within earshot, “That’s what I know,” it got me to thinking… what is it exactly I do know.

I know I have worked the same paycheck yielding job for nearly twenty years and find myself wondering what comes next.

I know that there are so many uncertainties I do not know where to begin muddling through finding answers.

I once had a friend in the midst facing a terrible diagnosis and she simply said, “We do not know what we do not know.”

I decided to shift my focus from the unknown to the known.

I know that I am incredibly grateful for the body of believers I am in…
I know that I am even more grateful for Jesus, for without Him life would be unbearable, without Joy, and void of purpose…
I know that even on the hardest and darkest of days He, Jesus is Light and Life..
I know that even when it takes as much effort and deliberate action to do the basics that I do not do them alone…
I know that in the secret places of hurt and despair He is there…
I know that He is good…
I know that He is trustworthy…
I know that His ways are better…
I know that He will use for good even the worst of circumstances…
I know that He loves me and He loves you…
I know that He called me (and you) and that He will sustain me (and you)…

I have found myself focusing on the what I don’t know a lot… but today I am going to choose to focus not just on what I know, but on WHO I know.

And that WHO is Jesus Christ, the knower of all things so that I do not have to be.