Seeing Differently: From Terrible Days to Tender Mercies

Have you ever read Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day?

Well, the Friday that Jenny and I just had made Alexander’s day look only slightly annoying. If we wrote a book about it, the title might be:

“Jenny & John and the Frustrating, Cringey, Basement-Dwelling, Totally Cruddy Day.”

It was one of those days you wish you could skip entirely and start fresh the next morning. By noon, we were ready to call it quits and roll over into Saturday.

But preparing a talk on Elder Jeffrey R. Holland’s final General Conference message—“And Now I See”—shifted everything for me. Elder Holland’s words recalibrated my gaze toward Christ and reminded me that even in the middle of a no-good, very bad day, there are small and simple ways the Savior heals.

Just like Elder Holland, Bruce R. McConkie in his final testimony (April 1985) and Lehi speaking to his children in 2 Nephi left powerful parting messages. Elder Holland’s final address joins theirs as a gift meant to bless us if we listen and learn.

The Blind Man and a Muddy Miracle

Elder Holland begins with a story from the New Testament—a man blind from birth.

Jesus spat on the ground, made clay from the dust and His own spittle, anointed the man’s eyes, and told him to wash in a nearby pool. An unusual healing method, right? Most of us might have politely declined such a remedy.

But the man obeyed. And when he washed, he saw. For the first time in his life, he experienced light.

A simple act. A strange method. A miraculous outcome.

The Pattern of Simple Faith

This pattern repeats throughout scripture.

Take Naaman, the Syrian army captain. A celebrated warrior, but a leper. When a prophet told him to wash seven times in the muddy Jordan River, Naaman balked. He wanted something grand, not simple. Yet when he humbled himself and followed the prophet’s counsel, his skin was healed, and his heart was changed.

Or think of the Israelites in the wilderness. After venomous serpents bit them, God gave them a way to live: look at a brass serpent lifted on a pole. Many refused, thinking it too easy to make a difference. And yet, those who looked—lived.

Nephi explained it this way:

“By the easiness of the way, or the simpleness of it, many perished.” (1 Nephi 17:41)

Different prophets. Different people. Different challenges. But the same divine pattern:
God uses simple, even strange-seeming acts of faith to unleash His miraculous power.

Great Things from Small Means

Elder Holland connects this same truth to his own life. Just as clay healed the blind man, the Book of Mormon gave Elder Holland spiritual sight—helping him “see the beauty of the gospel of Jesus Christ.”

Alma captures the principle perfectly:

“By small and simple things are great things brought to pass.” (Alma 37:6–7)

In today’s language, it might sound like this:
“Big, life-changing results often come from small, ordinary actions. God uses daily, humble faith to humble the ‘experts’ and to save souls.”

So what are those small and simple things in our lives?

• Prayer.

• Scripture study.

• Listening to our leaders.

• Going to church and to the temple—not as a checklist, but to make and renew sacred covenants that bind us to Christ.

These are the ways we begin to see Him more clearly.

From Testimony to Transformation

Elder Holland’s closing testimony echoes the blind man’s and Naaman’s and every Israelite who decided to look and live. He said:

“I came to my whole-souled conviction that The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is a true restoration of the New Testament Church… I could not deny the evidence of that restoration… I have had a thousand—ten thousand—other evidences that what I have spoken of today is true.”

Conversion doesn’t happen through grand displays—it grows through small, consistent acts of discipleship. As we trust God’s invitations, strange or simple though they may seem, we come to see what He wants for us and who He wants us to become.

Turning “No Good” into “Very Great”

Because of Jesus Christ, even our worst days can be transformed.

Alexander’s Terrible Day—and ours—can become a Wonderful, Marvelous, Really Awesome, Very Great Day.

Not because our problems magically disappear, but because we change. We begin to see Him—His grace, His humor, His refining power—in the middle of it all.

When we hang on through the hard days, we remember that there’s always “a twilight, a nighttime, and a dawn.”
Hope comes because of The Son.