Tender Mercies

Oh my goodness, this week has been full of tender mercies! My job in the office has gotten a little stressful sometimes because people aren't scheduling things when they should. It should be at least 2 weeks in advance, but they continue to bring it to me the day before. It frustrates me and puts me behind my own schedule. So, I was a little stressed this past week. I felt like I was failing my job because I couldn't get everything that I wanted to get done, done. Well, the other day I was working and one of the managers (Nathan) asked me how I was. I told him I was doing well and he replied, "Good. By the way, I don't know if I've told you this, but you're doing a great job!" Tender mercy!!!! I was feeling so bad about my job and yet I'm doing a great job.

Later that day, I was in my office (well, the place where I typically work) doing some inventory stuff. Fran (another one of the people I work with) came in and complimented how clean the room was. He said that it was one of the hardest rooms to keep clean because it was where all the inventory was--he had that position before I got there. He told me I was doing a great job and to keep it up! Another tender mercy! Goodness, it made me feel so incredible to know that I was doing better than I thought I was. And even now, as I type this, I realize that "I'm doing better than I think I'm doing, but I could do better." Neat! But I did get a lot done with the inventory this week! The entire food storage in my office is done! I had to count everything. One of the things in there was mayo packets . . . 4, 139 packets!!! Fortunately, most of them were already in boxes of about 200 so I didn't have to count those. But I spent several days counting mayo, ketchup, and mustard packets. It was a lot of fun though! I listened to Schubert, Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, etc. as I worked. It helped me to stay focused and enjoy counting all of those packets!

I just got a new computer, MacBook, and that was a huge tender mercy. My other computer is practically dead. The battery thing is broken, the plug is a little iffy, it always kicks me off the internet, and I was really frustrated with it. This computer came at just the right time! Tender mercy, my parents helping me get it (in fact, they paid for it!). I'm realizing more and more the great things in my life, even amidst all of the turmoil in the world I'm recognizing my blessings even more. Something this past week that has made me think a lot about tender mercies is my roommates. Last semester we were all, for the most part, so positive. This semester is almost completely different. There's a lot of negativity in the apartment, and I do it sometimes too, in fact just the other day I was recalling something that had happened to me that day. I was a little bothered by it, and when I realized how negative I was being, I immediately stated something I could learn from it. But it really effects the mood of the apartment. The spirit isn't as strong as it use to be, and it makes me sad. So, my roommates and I, after we have prayer in the evenings, are going to start doing tender mercies. We each go around and say something that happened that day that was a tender mercy. Showing that the Lord's hand is in our life and that good things do happen to us in the day. It's something we do in the office all the time and I absolutely love it! It brings such a powerful spirit.

Speaking of being positive about something though, yesterday I had to do something in my Choral Practicum class. I only have that class twice a week (Wednesday and Friday), and my teacher missed last Friday. So, he sent out an e-mail saying the things that we needed to do for this coming Friday (he mentioned he wouldn't be here on Wednesday). We were to type up a lesson plan on how we would teach an "obscure" hymn to the class in three minutes. So, I picked my hymn and then went to work. My lesson plan wasn't very good and I was extremely nervous. Well, I got to go first (thanks for having the last name Anderson Dad!). I got up there and had them open to the hymn "Brightly Beams our Father's Mercy". I was only going to focus on the chorus only the melody; the first thing I had them do was "ta" the rhythm. After we did that I told them "Good job!" Brother Brower stopped me and said "What was good?" We went back and forth for a minute and I realized that I made a mistake . . . I didn't ask them specifically to do the melody's rhythm. This happened several times, and yet it was a truly "deep" and humbling experience. I went into a realm of deeper learning and had to be truly humbled. Brother Brower, after those couple of minutes (which we didn't make it through what I wanted to do by the way) commended me for my humility. I wasn't cowering away from his suggestions or anything; I stood there and accepted it and applied it yesterday. He also commented on my speaking voice . . . apparently I have that "conductors voice" that you need. I may or may not have been extremely excited about that.