“I Will Remember Mercy”

When Alma prayed to understand how to deal with a disruptive set of young influencers, the Lord provided some guidelines but also emphasized the expansiveness of His grace:

As often as my people repent will I forgive them their trespasses against me.

Mosiah 26:30

In 1833, the Lord offered the same assurance to struggling church members in Missouri. The adversity they were experiencing was partly self-inflicted, He said. “There were jarrings, and contentions, and envyings, and strifes, and lustful and covetous desires among them,” and “They were slow to hearken unto the voice of the Lord their God” (Doctrine and Covenants 101:6-7). But His love for them was unchanging:

Verily I say unto you, notwithstanding their sins, my bowels are filled with compassion towards them. I will not utterly cast them off; and in the day of wrath I will remember mercy.

Doctrine and Covenants 101:9

President Jeffery R. Holland has taught:

However late you think you are, however many chances you think you have missed, however many mistakes you feel you have made or talents you think you don’t have, or however far from home and family and God you feel you have traveled, I testify that you have not traveled beyond the reach of divine love. It is not possible for you to sink lower than the infinite light of Christ’s Atonement shines.

There is nothing … that you have done that cannot be undone. There is no problem which you cannot overcome. There is no dream that in the unfolding of time and eternity cannot yet be realized. … The Lord of the vineyard still stands beckoning. “Come boldly [to] the throne of grace,” and fall at the feet of the Holy One of Israel. Come and feast “without money and without price” at the table of the Lord.

“The Laborers in the Vineyard,” General Conference, April 2012

Today, I will trust in the constancy of God’s love as I rely on His grace. I will not allow my missteps, past or present, to discourage me or slow me down. I will trust that God’s mercy can reach me wherever I am and can help me set right whatever is wrong.