God's Simple Tender Mercies

 

I washed my kitchen sink the other day and used a strong Clorox cleaner on the sink surface.  I forgot to wear latex gloves to protect my hands from the harsh effects of the cleaner.  After I was through cleaning the sink, I realized the danger that the skin on my hands would experience if I didn’t wash the cleaner off immediately.  I imagined the skin cracking as it did last year when it took almost six months to heal.  I rinsed my hands repeatedly and tried to get the cleaner off as good as possible without tearing my skin.  The more I tried the worse my hands smelled and looked.  Finally, I prayed for help and an idea came into my head that if I used hand lotion on my hands and let it sit on the skin and wore plastic vinyl gloves on my hands that the skin wouldn’t crack.  I didn’t doubt the source of the idea and I tried it.  It worked like a charm.  After a time, my hands felt and smelled normal and I didn’t worry about the skin cracking.

This taught me a lesson about listening to the Spirit as it taught me new knowledge.  This could be more explicitly defined as a tender mercy from God.  If I had read what to do for my skin out of a book, it may not have seemed important enough to follow, but the inspiration came when I felt panicked what to do for my hands and it was new idea for me and fortunately, I listened to that inspiration.  As I thought about the process that saved my skin, I was tempted to forget from where the inspiration came. I began to think that I was very intelligent to have thought of how to treat my skin.  Then, I remembered the words of Elder Bednar, when he said that

“The simpleness, the sweetness, and the constancy of the tender mercies of the Lord will do much to fortify and protect us in the troubled times in which we do now and will yet live.”

Quote: Psalms 145:9, "The LORD is good to all, and his tender mercies are over all his works". 

There are many examples of God’s tender mercies that we can experience, but I think the ones that many feel the most are those small miracles that happen to them on a daily basis because of faithful prayer.  It is through our faith that we will be able to realize the simple tender mercies that are available from God.

 

Tags: Faith Mercies Miracles Prayer

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