His profession was clearly white collar. But somehow he found himself, figuratively speaking, elbow deep in a home remodeling project. And there were times when he was quite sure that the project would never end.

Choosing a do-it-yourself project might not have been the best decision of his life, and clearly the work would have been done better by those who knew what they were doing. But, besides the finished product, two very specific blessings — and an object lesson about life — came from that experience.

Going in, his only expectation for the end was, quite simply, a remodeled house. But the Lord has a way of sometimes teaching with subtlety, if we will listen. So, for this tenuous builder, the remodeled house was nice, if only temporary. But the blessings and lesson were wondrous and eternal.

The first blessing was the enhanced bond of love that flowed from the overwhelming and unreserved help from generous family members — not the least of whom was his departed father, a craftsman and a perfectionist whose still-useful hand tools and long-ago-given advice saved the weekend builder more than once.

The second blessing was a profound reminder that the Lord cares for even for the tiny sparrows that fall to the ground. (See Matthew 10:29; Luke 12:6.) In the eternal, or even just worldwide, scheme of things, this little remodeling project was clearly inconsequential. But our remodeler is one of God's children; therefore all our remodeler does is of consequence to God.

That reminder was taught over and over again as the project progressed. There were so many times when, needing just a little help, he felt the Lord intervene.

Perhaps the most notable time was when our amateur builder had reached another one of those "I simply don't know how to proceed" points in the project.

"I happened to be listening to a tape of general conference," he later recalled. "Elder Bednar was giving a talk about the tender mercies of the Lord. He told the story of a priesthood leader who had decided to learn the names of all the young men in his stake and how this priesthood leader later had a dream about one of the young men whom he did not personally know. When the priesthood leader asked the young man if he knew what the dream meant, the young man simply replied, 'It means God knows who I am.' " (See "The Tender Mercies of the Lord," Elder David A. Bednar, April 2005 general conference.)

That phrase — "It means God knows who I am" — brought chills to the worker's body and tears to his eyes, right there in the middle of all that construction mess.

He knew that God loves individually. He remembered that "The Son of Man hath descended below (it) all." He was thankful that, even though his troubles were small, a kind and gracious Father was helping him through.

In the book Mere Christianity, the great Christian writer C. S. Lewis asserts that God "has infinite attention to spare for each one of us. He does not have to deal with us in the mass. You are as much alone with Him as if you were the only being He had ever created. When Christ died, He died for you individually just as much as if you had been the only man in the world."

Through those blessings, our builder learned that, in the Lord's infinite kindness, the Father had used that little remodeling project as an object lesson about life — to teach him a much larger, and far more important, lesson.

The lesson: In a very real way, working through the ups and downs of that project was just like working through the ups and downs of life. He had to learn what he didn't know, seek God's help in knowing what to do, have the faith that God's help would come, and then march forward with conviction, even when the task was difficult.

Blessings bestowed. A lesson learned. The Lord clearly loves His children.