Tender Mercies

A few years ago Elder Bednar gave a talk in conference that a lot of people really liked. I was pleasantly surprised to hear the title of this talk used by more than one seminary student during my year and a half experience of teaching here in Utah Valley. On the last day of class at Lone Peak High School I had the students each stand up and share their favorite scripture with the class. One young lady stood up and introduced her verse by saying that this passage of scripture was a tender mercy in her life. This, I'm guessing, came from Elder Bednar's talk, which was entitled "The Tender Mercies of the Lord."

Here is a link to the talk: http://lds.org/conference/talk/display/0,5232,23-1-520-33,00.html

Incidentally, it is my prediction that in the next while (could be a few years yet)Deseret Book will publish a collection of Elder Bednar's talks and the book will be called one of two things: Tender Mercies or In the Strength of the Lord. But since I didn't get the Editorial Assistant job at Deseret Book I cannot say for sure, because I don't have the inside scoop.

Elder Bednar begins his talk relating what it felt like during his first General Conference as a newly sustained member of the Twelve. Just before he addressed the world-wide audience the intermediate hymn was sung: "Redeemer of Israel." This comforted him in his anxiety to speak to the millions of church members and he thought of a verse from 1 Nephi 1 in which Nephi asserts that the tender mercies of the Lord are over all those whom he hath chosen because of their faith. Elder Bednar considered the singing of this hymn a tender mercy from the Lord...

That hymn has been a tender mercy in my life as well. One experience in particular was a ZLC meeting in the basement of the mission home in East Lansing, Michigan. The Spirit was poured out on that occasion as a small group of missionaries stood and sang with President and Sister Church that marvelous hymn.

But the tender mercy I wanted to post about is Jack Johnson. The other day I was feeling rather low about not having been hired to teach seminary, and I was teaching a group of prospective seminary teachers in my mind (this is really pitiful, but since I'm not teaching any actual classes I have to do it in my head). I was telling them that most of them would not get hired, and if they felt like me about it, it could well be a partial fulfillment of what Joseph Smith said about everyone being tested like Abraham. Then I told them that what they did for a living really didn't matter, but what really did matter was the person they would (or already had) take to the temple and make eternal covenants with. This was a wonderful sermon to myself, but I was still feeling kind of poopy about the whole thing, but when I went to bed Jessica (the most sacred and glorious tender mercy of my life) had her iPod on and gave me one of the ear phones. We went to sleep that night listening to Jack Johnson's song "Better Together." It was exactly what I needed... a very firm confirmation that "Love is the answer at least for most of the questions in my heart. Why are we here? Where do we go? How come its so hard?... It's always better when we're together." etc.

So my goal is to stop whining inwardly about what could have been and notice the tender mercies all around--and if I'm ever having trouble I can always turn on some of that wonderful melodic and peace-bringing JJ.