Since it has been a while since I posted to my blog and as way of introduction to what I am going to post I want to explain a little bit first. A couple weeks ago I started two university classes that are part of the Pathway program which is sponsored by BYU-Idaho. It is a one year program at the end of which I plan to matriculate at BYU-Idaho and get one of their four year online degrees.
One of my classes is a religious course. We are studying the first half of the Book of Mormon. One of the assignments this week is called putting it all together and one of the options in there is to post to a blog what I have learned this week. So I am posting to my existing blog.
I was very impressed by what I read in the directed study shared at the Pathway gathering this past Thursday. My group used option 2 titled Tender Mercies of the Lord. When I first read part B it didn't quite make sense and I was thinking that wasn't part of mercy. I reread it and soon understood. It says that tender mercies is described as "personal and individualized blessings, strength, protection, assurance, guidance, deliverance, loving kindness,consolation, support, and spiritual gifts."
When I read strength that is where I become confused as I didn't and still don't see exactly how strength is a tender mercy of the Lord. Of course if Jesus grants me strength then I see how that can be a mercy but I was thinking more of strength beyond what is normal for me.
I never thought of assurance, loving kindness, consolation, and spiritual gifts as being part of the tender mercy of the Lord.
My daughter just turned on her music in her room which is beside me and I got up to tell her to turn it down. Too me, it is a tender mercy that she actually turned it off. I let her know that I was doing my class work. The music she put on would have become a distraction.
I look forward to learning more about the tender mercies of the Lord.
