(Later) "Okay... I can do this!"
After I wrote that last bit, I promised myself that the change would happen right then. Well, every one who is smart understands that change takes time, I know that, but I wanted a change in my attitude; a change in my day. Of course I changed my attitude, for the better, but Satan knows me, like I learned at camp, and he knew exactly what to do to get me down again; only this time, I wouldn't let him! When we first got to La Pine, Grandpa promised he would take Christina and I out on a back road to drive the pick-up. Well, today he fulfilled that promise. Christina drove first and every thing went fine; a few cars passed and the steering was a little difficult for her, but other than that, all was well. We drove out to Twin Lakes, where we got a drink; then it was my turn to drive. Every was fine at first; I backed up great, slowed to the first stop sign great, started off great! And then, I looked at the speedometer. It was at zero- I knew I was going faster than zero, because I was actually going at all. Grandpa said it would kick in soon: he was wrong. I had asked Christina to tell me when to speed up and slow down because I was a bad judge of speed. She sure let me know, like I'd asked, so I shouldn't have been upset, but it felt like she was criticizing me. She tends to be better than me at most every thing, so this just felt like another time I was doing some thing "second best". She's never said anything like that to me, so it's not her, it was me. So, here I was driving along, doing okay for not know what speed I was going, and being told to speed up every two minutes, when a junction sign came up. I asked Grandpa three times if that was the junction I needed to turn off onto, and the second time, Christina told me he would tell me when to turn. As we came almost right on it, Christina asked him. He didn't hear or reply until we were passing it. "Okay," I told myself, "I can do this." I knew Grandpa hadn't meant for me to miss the turn, or that it was my fault, but I still felt inadequate. Well, I missed the first road to turn off, so we could turn around, and then the second road came up, and I stopped really fast. And I mean FAST! It was because I was stressed and it's hard for me to calm down when something goes wrong. After getting off the highway, really fast and stopping bad, I'd had enough; Grandpa turned the tuck around and I thought I was done. Oh no, he wanted me to finish. "Okay," I told myself again, "I can do this." I wanted to change, right? Well, giving up would not help that goal, so I got back in the drivers seat, and started off, only to find that my door wasn't shut all the way. Easily fixed, I knew I could do this, only now, I didn't want to. After, Grandpa had made the statement, "Boy, when she stops, she really stops," to Christina. I don't think he realized how much that hurt me, after all those things had happened to me. I imagined that I would get home, go up stairs and cry my eyes out, as we made the last few miles home and then a thought occurred to me: 'Which of the things that had happened today were in my "center of control"?'--something I'd read from a book titled, "The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Teens" by Sean Covey. The center of control is what you control and what you don't, and it's good to know the difference, because it's a waste of your time and energy to get upset about things out of your center of control. So I decided that it was in my center of control that I'd stopped fast, and yet that was under a stressful situation, and so it woudn't be effective to get upset over anything that happened today. I know myself and my limits, and stopping quickly is some thing I need to work on, but really couldn't be helped at that moment, so even that was in a sense out of my center of control, and therefore simply unnecessary to get angry about. It was out of my control that Grandpa had said what he had; It was out of my control that Grandpa hadn't been paying attention to the junction turn off; it was out of my control that the speedometer had broken. All of it, so getting upset, and crying over it all would get me no where, and I'm trying to move forward, remember? I'd been thinking all this, while on the way back, taking a chance to help myself, and hence was in a quiet meditation for the majority of the time. It had been decided in my mind, my center of control is over only me, my actions, and so getting upset wasn't the way. "Okay," I thought one more time, "I can do this." Only I didn't realize that as soon as I'd made that decision, Satan would work on me just a little more, hurt me just a little longer, poke and prod at me just a little bit harder. When we'd gotten home, we were telling Grandma about our eventful hour, when Grandpa said, "The ride home was the only time she'd shut up." Ouch! That hurt. I know he hadn't meant it to. I know that it was out of my center of control, but I knew the pain searing in me was louder than my reasoning; going upstairs and crying my eyes out didn't seem like too bad an idea after all. And then, something made sense; I was being tested by none other than Satan, and I was about to fail. If there's one thing I am not, it is a failure. I was not going to let Satan, that snake that can bruise a heal, get any satisfaction from me, so like a priesthood holder to a possessed soul, I bruised that serpents head, by saying to myself, "... O thou child of hell, why temp ye me? Knowest thou that the righteous yieldeth to no such temptations?" (Alma 11:23) I knew right then, without a doubt, that I would change. It will be just as hard, and take just as long, but I will not, and I repeat will not fail. The righteous yieldeth to no such temptations, and I am, no matter what I may do, say or think, a righteous person, because I love Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ, and have the Gift of the Holy Ghost, and I will repent forever, so I can stay righteous. This isn't a new concept, but a very helpful epiphany. God works in mysterious ways, and he helped me, in more ways than I can count, to come to this one conclusion. I have a center of control, and what some one says, no matter who much it hurts is not in it; and Satan is not in it; and I am not going to let myself be put into Satan's center of control. I will love God with every thing that I am. It's funny that I read about the "center of control" just a few days ago, and how it has changed the way I think and react SO immediately, and it's funny that Bekah Butterfield had told me her favorite scripture once (Alma 11:23) a long time ago, and I wrote it down, and remembered it. It's funny how such a bad day can turn out so good. "Okay... I can do this."