The Lord's Tender Mercies

The background:
A few years ago Elder Bednar gave a conference talk titled "The Lord's Tender Mercies". This talk really touched my heart. I thought about it a few days ago, and felt prompted to read it again. So I printed it off the internet, read it, and it was fresh in my mind.

More background:
A few days ago, Ally lost a book. It was a book she had only had for a day and only read it once. She really wanted this book, looked EVERYWHERE for it, had us pray for her to find it during family prayer, and I even tried to help her find it. (Mom's magic finding finger rarely fails, but it did in this case.)

October 22nd, 2008:
After the girls left for school in the morning, I went out to take the chickens some kitchen scraps and found one of them dead. It looked it like it had been killed by an animal (racoon or skunk or something) in the night. I don't really know the chickens by name like Mike and Ally do, so I wasn't sure which one it was. It was one of the smaller of our three black and white ones, so I knew it was either Ally's chicken Holly (named after the fairy hero in the Artemis Fowl series) or Liz's chicken. These hens are more like pets than just egg providers. Ally collects the eggs and cares for them every day. Just the day before she and Liz were outside with Holly and Liz's chicken in their laps petting them and holding them. Ally will run and the whole flock will run behind her.

I told the girls when I brought them home from school about the chicken and that I didn't know which one it was. Ally said if it was Liz's chicken she was going to be really sad, but if it was her chicken she was going to be really, really sad. Al ran to the backyard. I followed her. When I got out there she was playing in the coop area. I asked her if she figured out which chicken it was, but she said "no" and ran to the other side of the coop. She picked up the remaining small black and white chicken. She could tell by the color of the legs that it was Liz's chicken. I went to hug her, but she ran away and curled up on the grass in the corner of the yard. I tried to get her to talk to me, but she ran to the other corner of the yard (the chickens all running after her) and curled up in a ball. So I just went inside and left her alone, wishing I could do something to help her, but knowing she would have to go through the pain of loosing a pet and a friend.

She came in with red puffy eyes about half an hour later. She still didn't want to talk to me, but I heard searching around in our book closet (a little closet under the stairs with book shelves and kids books). I was in the kitchen preparing dinner. She held a book around the corner of the wall, so I couldn't see her, just the book. It was the missing book! The one that had been missing for several days, the one we had prayed over, the one that we had both looked for at least five times in that very same bookshelf! I said, "Oh! Where was it??" She peeked around the corner, smiling through her tears, "In the bookshelf!"

I said, "Come here, I want to talk with you." We came into the living room together, I put my arm around her and said, "Ally, Heavenly Father knows you are in pain. He knows you lost a friend. And he knew if you found this book at this time, it would comfort you. It is one of the Lord's tender mercies in your life - a way He helps you and shows He loves you. It won't take away all the hurt, but it will help, and God knew it would help." We both had tears coming down our faces, her for chicken and me for the knowledge of the Lord's tender mercies in my daughter's life at a time when she really needed it. I couldn't help her pain, but He could.