Thank you,

Johnny

I am the Primary chorister in the Ensign 1st Ward. I would love to teach your beautiful Christmas song to our primary this year. Could I please get a copy of the sheet music so we can begin learning the song? Thanks so much for sharing your amazing talent.

Then our son, who works with your husband, heard of the song, listened to it and sent us the link, suggesting we consider it. I heard it once and immediately knew that this was going to work really well for us.

I bought the .mp3 and the SATB, 10 copies. We did notice that the .mp3 was for the solo version and is in a different key than the SATB version as written. So we made some changes in the tenor voice to make it so that we could carry a battery powered player with us, and play the accompaniment which was a new innovation for us. We also took out F in the SATB and came up with our own ending.

At several homes there were people who either were not active in our church, or not members at all. It was the power of the questions in the song, that do what questions do, open the heart. (Search for “?” in the scriptures to see how the Savior used them.) The effect was wonderful as hearts were touched. I don’t think there was a single time when I could finish. We visited our Stake President and asked him to listen to the words carefully and then tell us what the theme was to him. He said that the song asked if he personally was making daily room for the Savior in his life. He personalized it immediately.

After we got home, we changed in to our pajamas, which is our tradition, had a bite to eat and then had a family discussion about 4 questions I came up with centered on the theme. One big insight that came our family is that making room, usually means taking something out of the space, and throwing it away. At some point, you can’t jam more stuff in. Like the pioneers, if you want the oxen to make it to the valley, you have to take stuff out, leave it on the trail, and move on from there. Repentance is about taking stuff out, so that there is room for more light and goodness. It was a good family discussion and will be the theme for the year. We will keep coming back to it. Are you willing to put yourself at risk, make yourself vulnerable, give others the opportunity to gossip about you, because you have been obedient? What if obedience to the spirit means opening yourself up to the ridicule of others you go to church with, or work with? How is that part of making room?

So there you have it. A suggestion or two which is to make sure people understand that the .mp3 is for the solo version of the music and that you don’t have an .mp3 version of the music for the SATB version. Also, a place were just the lyrics can be found without having to type them up again off the sheet music.

Thanks for sharing the inspiration that came to you for your family, when it was appropriate to do so. I sing the song constantly and find myself needing to be much better and more concrete when it comes to what it means, to make room.

Hm. Not sure why they aren’t working for you. But you can cut and paste one of the following links to comment at Shawna’s site:

http://shawnaedwards.com/2011/12/03/day-4-the-christmas-that-changed-my-life/

OR

http://shawnaedwards.com/how-to-get-a-free-copy-of-the-music/

The song is lovely and I would love to have the MP3 but all of the links are non functional. When I click on them, they don’t go anywhere.

Thanks,

Anne