The Power of Music

This Christmas season I just can't seem to get enough of Handel's Messiah. I've always loved the "Hallelujah chorus" ever since I sang it in High School concert choir, but this year I have listened to it over and over again and even made a Pandora station of it and cry every time I listen! I also love very much the cheesy story in the "Forgotten Carols" story about the little angel who isn't allowed to sing with the heavenly choir because he can't sing but then all of a sudden you can hear the music of his heart and it turns out to be Handel's Messiah. Then in this months Ensign (our church magazine) there was a very touching article about George Frideric Handel that tells how inspired he was while writing the music to the Messiah. You can read that here:Handel's Messiah. Then I was reading further and balled my eyes out while reading this:You were the Angels because it reminded me of being a missionary. It also reminded me of a time when our High School choir was doing a church fireside meeting in a chapel long long ago. We had never sung in a chapel before, we'd sung in the Salt Lake Tabernacle and in many beautiful auditoriums but never a chapel. After a bunch of spiritual songs and talks that I don't remember we sang the "Hallelujah Chorus" from the Messiah as the closing song. As I was singing I had the thought, "wow we sound good, we've never sounded this good before". Then I realized something, it wasn't us I was hearing. We were being joined by a heavenly choir of angels. I didn't see them, I'm not a visionary person, but I heard them, and I felt something so indescribable at that moment that I will never forget. There is something about that song that invites the spirit of Christ like no other song I've heard. If you haven't listened to it lately then click here , press play in the video box and turn it up.

Anyway, I hope you all are touched in some way this season as much as I have been by the music that testifies of the Savior. He truly is the King of Kings, the Wonderful Councilor, the Almighty God, the Everlasting Father and I hope I can give him adequate praise and "proclaim His grace and glory through holy songs of joy" this Christmas season.