Book of Mormon Mondays - Being Humbled

I'm not one of those people who really plans ahead for the worst things that could happen.  Well, let me amend that.  I am a plan-ner (making it two syllables makes it sound emphasized to me).  But if I have to spend money to be prepared or I have no inklings of anything negative happening, I tend to procrastinate that kind of preparation.

And I've always felt really guilty about it.  Until I read these scriptures.

Alma 32
13 And now, because ye are compelled to be humble blessed are ye; for a man sometimes, if he is compelled to be humble, seeketh repentance; and now surely, whosoever repenteth shall find mercy; and he that findeth mercy and endureth to the end the same shall be saved.

14 And now, as I said unto you, that because ye were compelled to be humble ye were blessed, do ye not suppose that they are more blessed who truly humble themselves because of the word?

15 Yea, he that truly humbleth himself, and repenteth of his sins, and endureth to the end, the same shall be blessed—yea, much more blessed than they who are compelled to be humble because of their exceeding poverty.

16 Therefore, blessed are they who humble themselves without being compelled to be humble; or rather, in other words, blessed is he that believeth in the word of God, and is baptized without stubbornness of heart, yea, without being brought to know the word, or even compelled to know, before they will believe. 

Now I'm not saying that it's better to be "compelled to be humble" than it is to become humble "because of the word,"  but to me it says better late than never.  I can still be blessed through repentance. 

Obviously it's easier to be humble from the beginning.  But being human and therefore prideful in various degrees, it's not always what happens.

For instance, this weekend I went down to my brother's wedding in Alpine, UT.  I knew I would be seeing my grandparents there, so I thought I would bring my parents' PC laptop with the family history book I've been compiling on it.  I was really excited about showing them my progress, but when I tried to open the program, nothing happened.  Actually something happened, just not what I wanted.  The program sort of half opened, twitched and died. 

I was shocked and really, really nervous.  What if somehow the file for my book was ruined along with the program (which at that point, I thought it was)!  I hadn't backed it up since I moved it from my computer to my parents'!

And that was the first thing my Dad asked me.  My husband and I had worked for HOURS and HOURS on this "little" project.  It's 312 pages!  How sad would it be for us to have to start over again!

And here I was again eating humble pie.  COMPELLED to eat humble pie.  My dad suggested that we try to connect the laptop to the internet and see if that helped.  I tried that at my in-laws house (PS:  They were so great and helpful trying to get us on their network!  We all tried multiple different things, but something on the laptop was preventing us from connecting properly...  Thank you anyway though!)

So I worried about it all the way home (6 hours in the car, and I'm a worrier!).  As it turns out, everything was fine.  My Dad was right, I needed to be connected to the internet for the program to work.  Crisis narrowly missed. 

And can you guess what I did first?  That's right, backed up my file.  Or at least tried, I'm not sure if it really worked. 

I know I'm bound to repeat this same pattern again.  Hopefully less frequently in the future.  I'm trying to improve.  At least now I am comforted to know that I am still blessed by being "compelled to be humble" while knowing that I'll be even more blessed if I was just more humble to begin with.