They Were Both There

Spoiler

When you only saw one set of footprints, it was then that I carried you.

For that Christian Writing contest with the above theme! And this is all true, by the way.

I am a morning person. Not that I enjoy being awake at O-Dark-Thirty, or going to school at seven. It's just more of a matter of being more in control of my feelings at that time of day. There are many days when, in the evening, it does not take much to push me over the edge and for me to lose that control.

This was one of those evenings. I had had a particularly emotional day, for whatever reason. There seemed nothing wrong with my life, and I was going to the temple with the Young Women that Wednesday, yet there were still those random moments where, for no reason, I would have to fight not to cry.

I always go to sleep with music. I play my favorite CD, the One Clear Voice album by One Clear voice. That night, though, I seemed to have misplaced it. I looked for it in my room, and couldn't find it. From there I went through the rest of the house. I got scolded by my parents for being out of my room past bedtime, but I didn't care. I needed that CD to sleep.

Here's where I lost control; I panicked. I didn't show it, I just slipped back into my room and began to cry. Where was my CD? Shaking, I went through all my CD cases again, and I eventually found it--I had misplaced it. It was in the wrong case. I was definitely relieved, but still freaking out. I had no idea why, but the fear didn't go away after my fear-inducer did. I paced. I cried. I felt something else inside my room, following me. I didn't realize until later that, having lost my cool for so long, I had let Satan take over.

I sat down on my bed and pulled out my quad, fingering the colorful ribbons obtained by finishing the Personal Progress Program, and opened it. I stared at the words on the page I had marked, but my eyes burned. Not with tears, but the type of heat that comes from squinting into the sun or standing by a fire with your face in the smoke. I set the bible aside and played the CD. It was soothing for half a second, before a pounding headache set in. Gasping for air, continually sobbing, I whispered once, "Help." Instantly the darkness in my room deepened. I said it again and again, my pleas turning into a frantic prayer.

"Help me, Lord. Father, I need thee! Banish this evil from my room. Help me sleep safely." I continued in this fashion for perhaps ten minutes, the whole time feeling alternating hot and cold flashes as two spirits, one dark and one light, battled in my room.

The abrupt ending of the chaos startled me. My prayer turned from that one of begging and pleading to that of pure gratitude. I was crying still, but now from sheer relief and thankfulness. I could almost feel his arms around me. I could hear the music playing still, the song called Savior. It was quietly reassuring, calming me. I took one more deep breath and opened my eyes. My lamp was shining steadily. All was tranquil.I glanced over at my scriptures, laying there open, waiting for me. Without hesitation I started reading again. The messages had never seemed so clear, so divine. I read and read, savoring the ease with which I understood them.

I fell asleep that night feeling nothing but peace, knowing that He will be there for me, always.

----

It's true, I promise! And it still scares me to think of what might have happened that night if I had not prayed.

Spoiler

Pray always, that you may come off conqueror; yea, that you may conquer Satan, and that you may escape the hands of the servants of Satan that do uphold his work.

--Doctrine and Covenants 10:5

Wow, scary, dude. O.O

Anyways, that aside, I was quite annoyed at having to read the large block of text in the middle. I kept losing my line and reading the wrong one. It made a for a confusing read: definitely something you should remedy by double-spacing.
The beginning paragraph was great, but the one directly after it kinda threw me:

This was one of those evenings. I had had a particularly emotional day, for whatever reason. My life was normal, and I was going to the temple with the Young Women that Wednesday, yet there were still those random moments that, for no reason, I would have to fight not to cry.

You have a few different sentences with completely different happenings. You say "My life was normal" and yet "I had had a particularly emotional day". Either a normal day for you is emotional, or you've made a mistake.
Anyways, it's just something to think about.
Jenth

Hi, Sassykat :D

I should probably start of by saying that I'm not religious so I can't really comment on that side of things.

I think because you're drawing this from personal experiences, it doesn't read so much like a story, if that makes sense? It seems quite informal and is written almost in the way that I might imagine a blog entry, where you're trying to stuff in all the details that you know are important before you forget them and because they seemed important to you at the time, but as a story they don't read really well. For example:

I play my favorite CD, the One Clear Voice album by One Clear voice

This just feels like repetition, and as a result doesn't read to well. There are other things you include that, were this a fictional story, wouldn't seem right at all, such as mentioning the ribbons from your Personal Progress Programme.

I think because this is based on something that happened to you, there's quite a bit of naval gazing. So many of your sentences start with the pronoun I that it gets a bit dull after a while. Something that might be interesting, is if you were to still base this from your personal experiences, but write it in the third person, as if it were happening to someone else. I think this would take case of some of the awkward phrasing and extra information, because it's the sort of thing that you do when you're being all informal and writing something for a diary, but would stick out straight away in something that was clearly a story.

One last little niggle that always gets me whenever I come across it is this:

I continued in this fashion for perhaps ten minutes, the whole time feeling alternating hot and cold flashes as two spirits, one dark and one light, battled in my room.

Ten minutes is an awful long time, especially at night. We humans have a pretty poor grasp of time when you think about it. There's that phrase, time flies when you're having fun, and in a similar way it can drag when you're not. I'm sure you've had times at night when you can't sleep and it feels like you've been tossing and turning for hours, only to look at your clock and realise that it's only been a few minutes! It's that kind of principle.

I hope that I've been of some help you you! If you have any questions or anything you'd like me to explain or elaborate on, feel free to shoot me a PM and whatnot :D


- Tinny