On a particularly difficult, disappointing day, I was struggling. Needless to say, I was not having a happy day. I continued throughout the day performing the tasks, going through the motions that were necessary, feeling gloomy.
Upon leaving a store, it was a tender mercy I noticed in a parking spot down on the ground a bright, shiny, gold penny. Immediately, as I continued walking forward past the penny the phrase, “find a penny, pick it up, all day long you’ll have good luck” entered my mind. I turned back around to pick it up as a car was pulling in before I could get it. At that point, I smiled. The irony.
I considered, by not picking it up would I forfeit good luck or could I still experience happiness and joy despite my circumstances and disappointment of that day? I reflected on a pill trial in which some participants were given an actual pill, let’s just say Ibuprofen. Other participants were given a placebo pill but were not told that it was a placebo pill. For both groups of participants, their symptoms went away. True, in fact, the medicine, Ibuprofen, worked. Likewise, the placebo pill seemed to work as well. The difference was one was a medicinal relief, the other was a relaxed mind believing in the pill’s effectiveness to relieve the symptoms—pressure, headache, or whatever the symptom may have been.
As I considered this analogy, although I did not have the penny in my hands, I saw the penny, thought of the phrase and that changed my outlook. It changed how I felt. The gloominess I was experiencing was altered not because I picked up the penny, the gold shiny penny, it was the phrase. My mental mindset shifted as I drove away. It was a tender mercy the difference seeing that penny made for me.
Yes, my day began with my feeling discouraged, downtrodden, and disappointed and the penny was a blessing and a tender mercy coming at a time that shifted the way I was feeling. I began to think and feel better. It is those moments of light, coming from a bright and shiny penny, I was grateful for on this particular day.
When has an item or object brightened your day when you were feeling gloomy?
tendermercym♥ments~jld
“How have you noticed Heavenly Father’s awareness and mindfulness of you today?”