Tender Mercies

In April my visiting teaching companion made “Tender Mercy” journals for each of the women we visit, as well as one for me. On the inside cover was this thought:

“At times, it’s easy to hyper focus on our own faults. We forget that we are of such great value that our Savior, Jesus Christ, not only died for us, but he continues to show us his love through his tender mercies. Let us never forget to look for the tender mercies in our own lives. If we are aware, these small gifts continue to testify to our hearts of our Savior’s love.”

This sweet companion encouraged each of us to look for the small tender mercies each day and write them down. I’ve been thinking about this lesson since then, and although my journal is still empty, I had a very specific experience last week where I felt like Heavenly Father blessed me with multiple small tender mercies.

My husband has meetings before church so I am left to get myself and my 11 month old ready. This really should be a simple task, I do it every day, but every Sunday no matter how much I try to hurry I feel like I get further behind. I didn’t need to wash my hair that day and I only needed to touch up a few pieces so I really felt like that was the week I would be early. Instead of touching up the few pieces I attempted what I thought would be a quick, different hairstyle…It ended up taking way longer than I thought. When I was finished I still felt like it looked ridiculous but I couldn’t spend any more time on it. I quickly threw on a dress and looked in the mirror…it was one of those days where I felt like nothing looked right.   

After scrambling to get my daughter dressed and get the diaper bag packed, we were on the way. I live four miles from the church and although it isn’t a long distance there are 15 traffic lights (definitely WAY too many but I can’t control the traffic light placement) to go through to get to the church. I only had seven minutes before church started; I knew I wouldn’t make it anywhere close to the beginning. As I was driving I noticed all the lights ahead were green. I could see quite far down the road and all of them were green. I thought, “I’m not going to hit all the green lights, that just doesn’t happen on this road.” Sure enough, every light stayed green until I went through. I couldn’t believe it! I made it to church and made it in to sit by my husband before the opening song had finished.

I sat down and although I was happy to have made it in such a short amount of time I still feeling thrown together and annoyed because of why I was late, my hair and dress frustrations. I sat their concentrating on that for a minute when I heard a whisper behind telling me I looked really pretty. Believe me, I didn’t feel pretty. This was coming from my visiting teaching companion, the same girl who made the tender mercy journal. She had no way of knowing about my morning or how flustered and frumpy I was feeling. At that moment, all of me calmed. It was like a peace washed over me and I could then concentrate on the meeting. I was so grateful for her kind words and her willingness to share them. I wanted to thank her for them after sacrament meeting but when I turned back she was gone already. I learned later she had only come for the passing of the sacrament that day but she went home right after because she didn’t feel well.

Sunday morning, Heavenly Father blessed me with two very small but very precious tender mercies. He allowed me to make it through all the green lights and then he had one of his precious daughters there to lift my spirit at just the right moment. I didn’t know when this girl gave me the journal to write down my tender mercies she would be one to help grant me one of those sweet moment. That morning was one of those moments where I knew Heavenly Father cared about me and was watching out for me and He loved me. What a precious reminder that is. I know as we strive to reflect on our days and search for those little moments of recognizing His hand in our lives we will more fully learn of His love for us. 

-Mallory