My Very Uncomfortable November Tender Mercies 🥴
Jesus is still in the uncomfortable!! Let me tell you where I found Him. 😌
Hi everyone!! How was your November??
Yes, I know it’s December now…BUT I feel like Thanksgiving gatherings just happened yesterday, lol… Either way, my husband has been singing and playing Christmas songs so I think he’s more excited than me?? Haha. (Hi babe!)
To be honest with you, a lot of my November days felt really uncomfortable. Yup, exactly like my title. Have you seen the Tinker Bell movie? Do you remember the part when Tinker Bell tries to learn the other fairy talents so she can go to mainland? Well, if you haven’t seen it, my kind of uncomfortable felt like this—specifically when Tink tries learning animal fairy talents. Yes, I love Disney. :’)
I truly felt like I was Tinker Bell and November was that terrified bird, and Lord knows it was also vice versa on the extra awesome days. 😂
Just like Tink says, I felt like a lot of things are just “…not working out,” and that I’m running out of options.
Then, I pray and God reminds me that even though my ideal thoughts may not be working out, He gave me small and simple opportunities to understand that I needed to shift my focus on the good things—things of God, things that last longer than my temporary troubles, which was extremely hard to do.
Here are some of those shift-of-focus opportunities from God that helped me:
The Inklings Podcast is one of my favorites and my go-to for extra spiritual oxygen. Emily Belle Freeman posts every Thursday! She’s been the Young Women General President for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints since 2023. This tender mercy episode might help you seek Jesus if you feel like the lights aren’t turning on. ♥️
I can’t count how many times I felt hurt, humiliated, and humbled all at once in one month—okay, maybe I can. Like three or four times. Which probably isn’t a lot, but that was enough for me to feel like I couldn’t tolerate another one. I had so many moments and memories visit me where I feel like I was trying too hard to understand or change everything involved in them that I just started getting frustrated at everything and also myself. And the Lord guided me to this tender mercy verse in the Book of Mormon.1
12 And now, my sons, remember, remember that it is upon the rock of our Redeemer, who is Christ, the Son of God, that ye must build your foundation; that when the devil shall send forth his mighty winds, yea, his shafts in the whirlwind, yea, when all his hail and his mighty storm shall beat upon you, it shall have no power over you to drag you down to the gulf of misery and endless wo, because of the rock upon which ye are built, which is a sure foundation, a foundation whereon if men build they cannot fall.
After ugly-crying for like ten minutes at a humiliating event, my husband’s goofiness lifted me up and I practiced believing the Lord’s words to let the false stories in my head be the mighty storm, not my Rock. False stories that made me feel small, inadequate, and insignificant are not my truth. And when I did, I enjoyed belting out Let It Go, by Queen Elsa.
One morning I felt too depressed to go to church. Our church service starts at 9AM. We live in a tiny basement and we have one dinky heater that broke, so it was cold and I just wanted to stay in bed. My morning-chipper of a husband helped me wake up and I got ready with an irritable, sad groan in my mind that went for a thirty minute loop.
My mind and chest felt pitch black and hollow…until we electric scootered on the way to church and the cold wind bit me in the face. My husband and I felt the biting cold right away. The weather was my tender mercy that day! The Lord helped me remember that cold weather and ice-sensory therapy were the tender mercies that helped me cope with my depression in the past. The cold never bothered me anyway🎶 Maybe I really am Elsa??? 🫣😆
I shared this tender mercy song on one of my recent posts, but I can’t help but share it again. For your heart, and mine. If your tender mercies feel uncomfortable, I pray that you and I can practice to shift our focus back to the Lord who stays and exists in the grueling details of the strain, hardship, and seemingly unfair and relentless growing pains.
A shoutout to my husband; my favorite tender mercy throughout November. A ball of energy, laughter, and the sunshine to my Eeyore-ness.
No matter how uncomfortable or unsettling your tender mercies are, focusing on Jesus Christ will never fail you. For your heart and mine, I pray that you and I can learn from Alma who experienced something similar2—
38 And the Lord provided for them that they should hunger not, neither should they thirst; yea, and he also gave them strength, that they should suffer no manner of afflictions, save it were swallowed up in the joy of Christ. Now this was according to the prayer of Alma; and this because he prayed in faith.
🌿
Where have you found Jesus lately??
I’d really love to know!!
See you in the comments♥️
Here’s some more similar cup of teas ~ 🥹💕
I studied Pres. Holland's talk a few weeks ago. I had a lot to chew on afterwards. I need to listen to that podcast because I love them both!