After driving the same route to seminary for months, I started noticing a specific charcoal-gray, lifted Toyota Tundra. It had red shocks and a hitch insert that caught my eye. That hitch insert became the truck’s identifying characteristic to me.

It took me several times to decipher what it was, but I finally decided it was a pineapple. It was pineapple-shaped with a pineapple texture. It had the crown on top. So a pineapple it was.

Above the pineapple was the letter F. Lots of people here have stickers of their whole name or their initials on vehicles. So I ultimately decided the F was some part of the person’s name or family.

F-Pineapple Truth

One day, my husband Anthony and friend Roxanne were both helping in seminary. As we drove towards Roxanne’s house to drop her off, I saw the truck. Delighted to show them the pineapple trailer hitch insert, I pointed it out. When we got close enough for it to be visible, Anthony started laughing.

“Delisa! That’s not a pineapple!” He laughed and laughed.

“Well, what is it then?”

“Your pineapple is a bomb. And that is an ‘F-bomb.'”

I told them I thought the “F” must represent the driver’s family’s name. We laughed uncontrollably.

As we pulled up directly behind the truck at a stoplight, I could see how someone might think that pineapple looked like a bomb. When I mentioned that, we all started laughing again.

For Christmas, Roxanne gifted me a vinyl pineapple family sticker for me to put on my truck window.

I didn’t put it on the truck window, though. Instead, I kept it in a spot where I see it every day. Some days, I chuckle at the memory. Other days, it reminds me to make sure that truth I’ve accepted is really truth.

I believed a metal bomb was a pineapple because a pineapple fit into my worldview more than that bomb did. The F-pineapple was truth enough for me to want to share it. However, when real truth presented itself to me, I realized my error and adopted the real truth. I wasn’t happy about that particular bomb infiltrating my world, but I realized it was true regardless.

It would have been silly for me to reject that truth because I didn’t like it. It would have been silly for me to insist everyone else adopt my F-pineapple view. It would have been silly for me to refuse to shift what I believed was true because my husband and dear friend might laugh at me. (I didn’t have to wonder about them laughing at my supposition of truth. They did laugh at me!) I didn’t hold on to my pineapple thoughts because I was afraid of being wrong at all costs.

I just put aside months of deliberation and happiness in discovering a metal pineapple that I wanted for my own truck.

Accepting Real Truth

Admittedly, it’s not always easy to shift to real truth.

Lamanites and Nephites fought for centuries over perspectives of such truth. King Noah and his priests held to their truth that they lived the law of Moses despite Abinadi’s opposing prophetic real truths. Korihor and Sherem admitted that they knew real truth though they taught an apostate version of truth anyway. It took an angel and divine-intervention coma to rectify Alma’s unbelief to true belief.

Saul believed his cause was just and that he knew the real truth. He persecuted Christians and supported Stephen’s stoning. The Lord appeared to Saul in a pillar of light and asked Saul, “Why persecutest thou me?”  Saul was shocked and astonished.

The Lord sent Saul to Ananias, whose truth believed that Saul was a destructive adversary. The Lord gave Ananias real truth, too. “Go thy way: for he is a chosen vessel unto me, to bear my name before the Gentiles, and kings, and the children of Israel.”

Ananias testified of the Lord’s truth to Saul. “And he said, The God of our fathers hath chosen thee, that thou shouldest know his will, and see that Just One, and shouldest hear the voice of his mouth. For thou shalt be his witness unto all men of what thou hast seen and heard.”

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Then the Lord sent Saul, renamed Paul, to preach real truth throughout the land. His preaching helped others set aside their truth as they accepted the Lord’s truth.

Jesus taught His disciples real truths and then often asked, “Believest thou this?”

Do I believe His real truths? Do we? Can we? Will we?

May we always be able to recognize and internalize real truth when we find it despite any difficult mental and emotional shifts accepting that truth might entail.

Related posts:

Am I Plugged Into the Source? Devolution From Truth to Modified Apostate Truths What is Truth? Throwing Stones and Shooting Arrows at the Wall