The sentence was "You do not understand the gospel of Jesus Christ". I know from experience that the words in blessings are directly from my Heavenly Father. (Nor do I think that Rob would dare ever say that to me unless prompted by the Holy Ghost). I was shocked.
I have had the great blessing to have parents that taught me about Jesus Christ. Every Sunday since I was born I have spent 3 hours at my church listening to others teach about Jesus Christ and his gospel. Sometimes I was the one chosen to teach. When I was in High School I took a class every semester called Seminary that specifically taught from the scriptures about Jesus Christ. When I was in college I took a class every semester that taught from the scriptures about Jesus Christ. My favorite class in college and the one that significantly changed me was a class on the New Testament which is basically the gospel of Jesus Christ. In fact the first four books in the New Testament are referred to as the gospels.
What the heck could I have possibly not understood from all of that?
After the blessing I determined that I needed to figure out what I was not understanding. Every morning I spent a bit of time reading the scriptures and praying and writing my thoughts or scriptures that stood out to me in a notebook. So I started using that time to pray and read specifically to determine what I did not understand about the gospel of Jesus Christ.
For a year every time I opened the scriptures in my study or at church in classes they talked about mercy. It was as if that was all I could read about. Every scripture, every story was about how merciful our Heavenly Father and his Son are and how much they love us.
Why is this significant? I remember a quote by a leader in my faith. We believe in fact that he was an apostle of Jesus Christ called in our day and time. His name was Neal A. Maxwell. He said "Mercy drenches the plan of salvation." The plan of salvation, the whole reason we are here on this earth and mercy covers it so significantly that it is in every pore.
This knowledge has changed the way I look at myself. It has changed the way I look at others and how I view the world. Mercy is not easy for us to extend to others. The world we live in can be very unmerciful. People can be unmerciful but there is joy in knowing that mercy is so deeply part of our Heavenly Father and his Son. Mercy is the reason for the atonement of Jesus Christ. It is the reason for us coming to earth. I try to remember that when I have the chance to extend mercy. I am not very good at it. We all fall incredibly short of what our Savior and Heavenly Father are but I can try and mercifully they are there to pick me up and dust me off when I fall short.
