2024 WINNER: Christian Book Awards (biography). On a sunny day in 2019, country music singer Granger Smith found his three-year-old son, River, face down in their pool, unconscious. Emergency responded restarted River’s heart, but doctors could not revive his oxygen-starved brain. After he and his wife, Amber, buried their youngest child, Granger found himself caught in a runaway river of grief that he could not escape. Alone on his tour bus, on the darkest night of his life, Granger had a spiritual encounter with Jesus that lifted him out of the muck and onto a new path. Confronted with the weakness of his former faith, he set out to discover the truth about the Source of the river of his life. Driven by the hope that River’s death had a purpose, Granger soon encountered the God of all grace and mercy who could be trusted with every current, hazard, twist, and turn. As Granger and Amber began their walk in faith, they discovered the purpose of their suffering: to point others who are hurting to the Source of all peace, hope, comfort, and freedom.
