Tender Mercies

Last week a 24-year-old woman was kidnapped and brutally raped at a Tennessee cabin. In a strange move by her captor, he decided to have pizza delivered to the home. The cabin was thirty miles away from the pizza place, but the manager of the restaurant decided to deliver the pizza anyway, even though the distance was usually out of their delivery zone. The delivery man's wife accompanied him on the trip and waited in the van while the pizza was delivered. As the kidnapper/rapist turned his back to sign the credit card slip, the woman sat up to look over the back of the sofa that had been concealing her and quietly showed her bound hands to the delivery man while mouthing "Call 911." The delivery man returned to the van and told his wife that they needed to find a phone, since their cell phones were out of range. The police came, rescued the woman, and arrested the kidnapper. http://www.ajc.com/services/content/printedition/2009/05/30/pizzaman0530.html

While it's obviously very sad that this woman had to suffer through a kidnapping and rape, it's also gratifying to know that God does know of our troubles and will intervene on our behalf. The kidnapper was either stupid or arrogant in not considering the idiocy of having pizza delivered to a crime scene -- especially when he was the one committing the crime. Then the pizza restaurant decided to deliver to a home out of their normal delivery area. Fortunately, the pizza guy was smart enough to catch on to the situation and keep his cool. Several tender mercies came together to save this young woman's life and release her from bondage.

"We should not underestimate or overlook the power of the Lord’s tender mercies. The simpleness, the sweetness, and the constancy of the tender mercies of the Lord will do much to fortify and protect us in the troubled times in which we do now and will yet live. When words cannot provide the solace we need or express the joy we feel, when it is simply futile to attempt to explain that which is unexplainable, when logic and reason cannot yield adequate understanding about the injustices and inequities of life, when mortal experience and evaluation are insufficient to produce a desired outcome, and when it seems that perhaps we are so totally alone, truly we are blessed by the tender mercies of the Lord and made mighty even unto the power of deliverance." Elder David Bednar