Tender Mercies

Today was one of those "tender mercies" days. For months I have worked with students to plan an event for National Public Health week. We have spent countless hours planning and organizing. The event was scheduled for outside on BYU's main campus. For a week I have been watching the weather forecast and praying (literally) for good weather. One day the forecast for Thursday was 10% chance of rain, then it said, 30%, then 50%. I am not sure what that means anyway-- either it rains or it doesn't.

Well, Monday and Tuesday were sunny and beautiful. Wednesday was overcast but bearable. This morning when I woke up I could hear the rain. Not a good sign. I looked out and it was a mixture of rain and snow. I checked the Weather Channel. It was to rain all morning and clear by 2:00. Our event was from 11-1.I know that God has all power, and He could make it stop raining. But there wasn't a hint of sun on the horizon. I admit that tears did come to my eyes. We had worked so hard and only to have it ruined by weather.

This morning while reading my scriptures, I happened to look up a cross reference to 1 John chapter 5 vs. 14-15, which reads: "And this is the confidence that we have in him, that, if we ask any thing according to his will, he heareth us: And if we know that he hear us, whatsoever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we desired of him." I felt like this was an answer to my prayer and God talking to me. It was one of those moments when you turn to a seemingly random passage and yet it is a personal message just for you.

At 8:00 a.m. the man from Grounds called wanting to know if we were canceling or should he put up the six white 10'x10' tents that I had the inspiration to order last week (and pay $25 a piece for). Hum... I told him that we were going to do it, so put up the tents. When the students left the office at 10:00 it was still raining. And it pretty much was a light rain most of the morning. Toward 11:30 it turned to a light mist. It wasn't enough to keep the students away or from waiting in line for pizza. In fact, the whole event was a HUGE success!

Looking back, I think that the rain was probably a blessing (this is the tender mercy part). In this same area on campus they put up large tents that stay up all summer. The bookstore uses them for sidewalk sales during Women's Conference, etc. They put up the tents this week. This morning one of our student volunteers went and asked if we could use the huge tents (it pays to know people in high places). They said yes. So instead of having our event spread out across all of Brigham Square it was in a smaller, condensed area. All the faculty were under one large tent talking with students about public health. If the weather had been sunny, we would have never used the tents and I think we would have lost the impact. While I was praying for sun, what I got instead was a light mist (not a downpour) and the chance to use huge tents, that we didn't schedule or have to pay for.

And yes, it was clear and sunny by 2:00 p.m.

Then the perfect ending of the day-- my friend Brenda emailed and said she got me Red Sox tickets for a game in July! Yeah!!

Life is Good!