Tender Mercies of the Lord

Yesterday was definitely a hard day on our mom (Marilyn). She was having a day of disappointment and discouragement. From the disappointing new room for dad where he now has a roommate, with only enough room for one visitor at a time, and less one-on-one care from the nurses to discouraging attitudes from the doctors.

“The tender mercies of the Lord are real and do not occur randomly or merely by coincidence.”

There have been so many gifts from our Father in Heaven during this hard time. Most I am sure we don’t even recognize. One gift came when my Mom received a phone call yesterday evening from a doctor on a church mission in Orlando. Mom was grateful for his call and he has already been a big help to them. By the time she had finished the call, got back over to the hospital, talked with a friend of dad’s, this doctor had already sent the missionaries over to see them. This friend of our dad’s that she talked with was a huge blessing to her as well and a miracle that he even found them. His name is Brian Collard. He works for Ford and was friends with Dad. He now lives in Florida, about an hour away from Orlando. He heard about Dad from a friend of a friend (miracle how he even found out) and decided to come to Orlando with his family. While his family went to Disney World he went to the temple and then came to visit dad. Mom was so grateful he came! About this time is when the missionaries (one of the missionaries even happened to know Larry’s dad-He was a bishop to this missionary when he was a small boy) showed up and they all went back to dad’s room and gave him a priesthood blessing.

Today we have wonderful news! Mom was talking with Dad this morning and asked him to squeeze her hand and he did! She asked him a question and he nodded his head yes. He has since squeezed all their hands and nodded yes a couple times. He tried very hard to open his eyes. Just by doing these few things took all the strength he had. It seems so small, but is so HUGE! We are so grateful the Lord gave him the strength to be able to do this for us and give us the hope we needed. We thank all of you for your thoughts and prayers, and especially for those of you who participated in the special fast on behalf of Larry last Sunday.