“Music is God's gift to man, the only art of Heaven given to earth, the only art of earth we take to Heaven.” Walter Landor

My sweet little Abby loves music and she loves to dance.  Her daily outfit most often includes a leotard and tutu, of which she owns at least 52.  She loves to put the Nutcracker soundtrack on in her room and twirl around to the sounds of "the Dance of the Sugarplum Fairy".  Lucky for her she has full size sliding closet doors that are made entirely of mirrors.

Her latest dancing obsession is playing a Wii game called "Michael Jackson:  the Experience".  She happens to be a big MJ fan--she knows all the words to "Man in the Mirror" and can dance every step in "The Girl is Mine".  But there is one song on that game that scares the crap out of her called "Ghost of Jealousy".  The song itself isn't too scary, but there is one part where the animated MJ turns into a skeleton and a picture of a skeleton face flashes on the screen accompanied by a scary scream.  The past two nights we have spent several hours reassuring her and trying to calm her fears as her sweet, little, impressionable 4 year old mind thinks about this frightening image.  Last night, she cried as I tucked her in and told me she was scared.  I tried to tell her that what she was scared of wasn't real, it was just a game and so on.  I tried to sing funny and happy songs for her to get her mind thinking of something else. Finally, after a flash of what I absolutely consider to be a little prompting from the Holy Ghost, I took my iPod, hooked it up to a speaker and started playing the Mormon Tabernacle Choir's (better known in my house as Aunt Amy's choir) "Love Is Spoken Here" album in her room.  I cannot describe to you the sight of the immediate change in her countenance as she heard those first few lines of "I Feel My Savior's Love".  It was so cool.  The whole feeling her in bedroom changed as light dispelled darkness with the sound of those voices.  She finally let me leave her alone in her room and when I checked back minutes later, she was asleep.  This morning as she was eating breakfast she started to think and talk about all the scariness again and asked me if we could please listen to Aunt Amy again?

I have re-learned a couple of things from this experience.  First, the power of light is always greater than the power of darkness.  Sometimes we don't even realize how dark it is around us until we turn on the light.

Second, music is quite possibly the greatest power on earth.  Nothing can evoke emotion from us with such force.  Nothing can influence our actions or our thoughts more than music.  And nothing can push away the powers of evil faster than the power of an uplifting song.