Divine Compensation

Last night was the first rehearsal of the DMCO season.  I can't even tell you how happy and excited I was to be back there singing with that group.  I walked right back to my usual spot in the front row and it was as if I hadn't even been gone all those months.  

And look what we're singing!  Yep, I know...I had to hold back the tears while we sang it. 

"My mind was drawn immediately to Nephi’s phrase “the tender mercies of the Lord,” and I knew in that very moment I was experiencing just such a tender mercy. A loving Savior was sending me a most personal and timely message of comfort and reassurance through a hymn selected weeks previously. Some may count this experience as simply a nice coincidence, but I testify that the tender mercies of the Lord are real and that they do not occur randomly or merely by coincidence. Often, the Lord’s timing of His tender mercies helps us to both discern and acknowledge them." - David Bednar

Last September when I left DMCO, I couldn't see any possible way that I would ever have an opportunity to sing with them again.  And I poured out many, many tearful prayers to Heavenly Father saying that very thing, and wondering how in the heck I was ever going to find a way to magnify this talent He's given me that I have come to love so much.   But that's the great thing about Heavenly Father and His timing... there is compensation for every loss.  Every single one of them.  I know that for sure.  Whatever we ache for and are heartbroken over, He will compensate for in our lives with abundant joy somewhere else.  I'm sure it won't always look like my DMCO experience with the very thing returned exactly as it was before or as quickly, but I do know that I have had enough experiences with joy following loss that I now have a blazing testimony of divine compensation.  There are other things that I ache for regularly and shed way too many tears over, but this experience reminded me that somewhere down the road there is abundant joy waiting in some delightful form that my limited perspective can't even imagine adequately.  And that is a huge reason to have HOPE and to look forward to the future with joyful anticipation.  

"The Lord compensates the faithful for every loss. That which is taken away from those who love the Lord will be added unto them in His own way. While it may not come at the time we desire, the faithful will know that every tear today will eventually be returned a hundredfold with tears of rejoicing and gratitude."  - Joseph B Wirthlin