Our teenage daughter wrote the following blog post. Her blog is private, but we got permission to share it here. She is pretty insightful.
Change Isn't Just In The Air...
..it's in us.
(Before you freak out, this does NOT have ANYTHING to do with "The Talk". I promise. I'm not touching that subject with a ten foot pole.)
Autumn is often referred to as "the season of change", but it doesn't seem fair to me that it would be the one season to gain that distinction. Each season has changes. The Earth is constantly changing, along with the world (as in the people and society), and us, individually.
Over the last couple weeks, I've become a huge Agatha Christie fan. (More like an addict...I read one book, and then I couldn't stop.) Recently, I read a Miss Marple book called Nemesis, and there was something in it that made me very, very sad. (Um, aside from the murder part. Because that's obviously not good.)
There was a young man in the book who had been bad news his whole life. He was given chance after chance after chance, and never seemed to change, and by his late teens, everyone had, more or less, washed their hands of him. Even people who he hadn't really met, and who should have been people to trust in his ability to change...well, they just didn't. No one believed that he could change, even when he himself had good intentions for the first time in his life, instead of others having good intentions for him. He couldn't change, everyone said. Not fundamentally.
And the sad part is, that at the end of the book, everyone still believed that.
One of Satan's most effective, widely spread lies is that we do not have the ability to change. Sure, we can change our intentions and our attitudes for a little while--but we can't change. Not fundamentally.
But guys, that is NOT TRUE.
To say that we can't change who we are for the better is to say that Heavenly Father's plan for us was doomed to fail. To say that we can't change and be the people God wants us to be is to say that Christ's sacrifice for us was pointless. To say that we can't change, fundamentally, is to say that there is no point in life at all.
Of course, Heavenly Father's plan can't fail. Christ's sacrifice was not some futile effort on His part. And life is anything but pointless.
Last year, I went through one of the hardest times of my life. For about six months, I consistently felt like I was a terrible person who couldn't get better and that there was no point in even trying. Every time I heard something that said that wasn't true, something inside of me went, "yeah, okay, that's true for most people. That's true in most cases. But not mine. I'm too far gone. I can't change."
Sometimes I still feel that way. But by now, I know what to do--I pray. And invariably, I remember that those words are lies. I can change. I can change just as much as you can change, and you can change just as much as Alma and his son changed, just as much as Saul changed on the road to Damascus, just as much as every one of those millions of people who are trying every day to improve and be better can change. Just as much as those people do and did change.
It doesn't matter what circumstances you are in--it doesn't matter how far you feel you are gone. You can change. That's what life is all about, really, changing to become more like our Savior. And believe me when I say, it's possible. With His help, you. can. change. I'm not saying it's going to be easy--because it's not. It's going to be one of the hardest things you will ever do, and the process is gonna take your entire life. But with His help, you are up to the challenge.
Please try not to forget that. And if you do (because I think we all do sometimes, no matter how hard we try), turn to the Savior. And He will help you remember just how special you are. I promise.
So, it's not Autumn. But it is Spring. And as I see magnolia trees and daffodils bursting into bloom all around me, I can't help but smile. Heavenly Father loves me. Christ loves me. And I can change.
And the same goes for you.
