What do you call it when a little miracle makes life better? I call it wonderful. Elder David Bednar calls it a tender mercy.
“The Lord's tender mercies are the very personal and individualized blessings, strength, protection, assurances, guidance, loving-kindnesses, consolation, support, and spiritual gifts which we receive from and because of and through the Lord Jesus Christ.”
I guess I could call it a tender mercy too…. a wonderful tender mercy… though, by definition, all tender mercies are wonderful. If they were not wonderful, they would not be tender mercies, right? But I digress…..
Very personal…very individualized blessings….Yep! That’s been my experience lately. Let me tell you about a couple…..
Sandy gave me a pair of earrings. They were small, subtle, and classy (like Sandy in many ways!). I did not wear them often but they definitely had a distinct place in my earrings-coordinated-with-outfits wardrobe master plan.
On the evening of my last wearing of those earrings, I discovered that one was missing. Gone. Though I’d carefully attached an earring back when donning it that morning, somewhere in the day’s travels it had fallen out. I’d been hither and thither, the earring was dark (not like Sandy) and small and classy (like Sandy) and there was really no hope of finding it. I wrote the pair off as a loss. Bummer.
Weeks later, as I stepped from the tub onto the bathroom floor, I experienced a sharp pain in my right arch. My feet were bare (as is usually the case when one exits a shower) and unprotected. OUCH! I reached down to remove what I suspected was a “pokey” (sharp thorn) from the bottom of my foot and found that the suspected thorn was really a small, dark, classy earring….the very one that I’d written off as a loss weeks earlier. It was a “very personal and individualized blessing”….certainly a wonderful tender mercy.
Our Miss Tanah will attend SUU (Southern Utah University) in the fall. Until recently her most concrete plan for living accommodations was a tent. Tents and concrete do not have a lot in common and concrete plans for spending the semester in a tent do not have a lot of common sense. So Thursday afternoon (late afternoon) Tanah and Lance spontaneously decided to go to Cedar City the next morning (early morning) to search for housing.
Good luck! Inquires at several real estate offices and conversations with several apartment complex office managers all yielded the same story. Housing at SUU is scarce. If you find something open, grab it quick. “In fact,” one person told them, pointing to a complex that was clearly under construction, “those apartments are not even done yet and are already sold out.”
At the LDS Institute building a very nice man directed them to the SUU housing office where a very nice woman (who happened to be married to the very nice man at the LDS Institute building) told them about a very nice apartment that just opened up that morning. “It is located one block from campus and you should check it out,” they were told.
Check it out indeed! The apartment had openings not only for Tanah but also for her two friends. It is only one block from the theater side of campus where five of Tanah’s six classes will be held. It has vaulted ceilings, a loft in every room, wi-fi and utilities are included in the rent payment, and the rent is $100 less per month than is being charged for the apartments that are not yet completed. Definitely a tender mercy….a much bigger tender mercy than a found earring!
And the day’s tender mercies did not end there. Tanah has been very much less than motivated to find a summer job. Having seen both an apartment she loves (better than she hoped for) and the cost of renting said apartment (more than she planned on), she is suddenly much more open to the idea of working this summer. On the very day she was galvanized to action, Chris (Lance’s brother) called and offered her a job. If the offer had come 24 hours earlier, its reception may have been different. Coming when it did, it was gratefully and graciously accepted. Both the offer and its timing were a tender mercy.
Tender mercies….very personal and individualized blessings….are very real and, I suspect, very much more common than we realize.
May your week be filled with tender mercies and may you recognize both them and their Source!
Love you,
Teresa
“The Lord's tender mercies are the very personal and individualized blessings, strength, protection, assurances, guidance, loving-kindnesses, consolation, support, and spiritual gifts which we receive from and because of and through the Lord Jesus Christ.”
I guess I could call it a tender mercy too…. a wonderful tender mercy… though, by definition, all tender mercies are wonderful. If they were not wonderful, they would not be tender mercies, right? But I digress…..
Very personal…very individualized blessings….Yep! That’s been my experience lately. Let me tell you about a couple…..
Sandy gave me a pair of earrings. They were small, subtle, and classy (like Sandy in many ways!). I did not wear them often but they definitely had a distinct place in my earrings-coordinated-with-outfits wardrobe master plan.
On the evening of my last wearing of those earrings, I discovered that one was missing. Gone. Though I’d carefully attached an earring back when donning it that morning, somewhere in the day’s travels it had fallen out. I’d been hither and thither, the earring was dark (not like Sandy) and small and classy (like Sandy) and there was really no hope of finding it. I wrote the pair off as a loss. Bummer.
Weeks later, as I stepped from the tub onto the bathroom floor, I experienced a sharp pain in my right arch. My feet were bare (as is usually the case when one exits a shower) and unprotected. OUCH! I reached down to remove what I suspected was a “pokey” (sharp thorn) from the bottom of my foot and found that the suspected thorn was really a small, dark, classy earring….the very one that I’d written off as a loss weeks earlier. It was a “very personal and individualized blessing”….certainly a wonderful tender mercy.
Our Miss Tanah will attend SUU (Southern Utah University) in the fall. Until recently her most concrete plan for living accommodations was a tent. Tents and concrete do not have a lot in common and concrete plans for spending the semester in a tent do not have a lot of common sense. So Thursday afternoon (late afternoon) Tanah and Lance spontaneously decided to go to Cedar City the next morning (early morning) to search for housing.
Good luck! Inquires at several real estate offices and conversations with several apartment complex office managers all yielded the same story. Housing at SUU is scarce. If you find something open, grab it quick. “In fact,” one person told them, pointing to a complex that was clearly under construction, “those apartments are not even done yet and are already sold out.”
At the LDS Institute building a very nice man directed them to the SUU housing office where a very nice woman (who happened to be married to the very nice man at the LDS Institute building) told them about a very nice apartment that just opened up that morning. “It is located one block from campus and you should check it out,” they were told.
Check it out indeed! The apartment had openings not only for Tanah but also for her two friends. It is only one block from the theater side of campus where five of Tanah’s six classes will be held. It has vaulted ceilings, a loft in every room, wi-fi and utilities are included in the rent payment, and the rent is $100 less per month than is being charged for the apartments that are not yet completed. Definitely a tender mercy….a much bigger tender mercy than a found earring!
And the day’s tender mercies did not end there. Tanah has been very much less than motivated to find a summer job. Having seen both an apartment she loves (better than she hoped for) and the cost of renting said apartment (more than she planned on), she is suddenly much more open to the idea of working this summer. On the very day she was galvanized to action, Chris (Lance’s brother) called and offered her a job. If the offer had come 24 hours earlier, its reception may have been different. Coming when it did, it was gratefully and graciously accepted. Both the offer and its timing were a tender mercy.
Tender mercies….very personal and individualized blessings….are very real and, I suspect, very much more common than we realize.
May your week be filled with tender mercies and may you recognize both them and their Source!
Love you,
Teresa
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