Feeling the Savior's love through music

It was a very difficult summer for our Primary.  Senior primary in particular, as we lost two boys (brothers) from our ward who were killed in a horrible boating accident on the lake.  The sadness and the senselessness of this accident (caused by a drunk boater) left the children, and all of us leaders brokenhearted. One of the boys was in our Senior primary.  To put him into words, if there was ever such a thing as a living, breathing cartoon character, it would be him.  He was the life of primary.

The Sunday after the accident I didn't know what to do.  I didn't even want to do music time.  I didn't think I'd make it through even a verse, let alone a whole singing time without breaking down.  I kept praying trying to know what I should do.  My husband had bought me some flowers a few days earlier and they'd cheered me up on many occasion.  I woke up one morning and saw these flowers and felt prompted to make a bouquet of "love" for the kids.  Death is such a confusing thing for children to understand (sometimes for us adults as well) but I wanted them to understand that even though sad things happen sometimes, we have a Heavenly Father who loves us and is watching over us.  

To the bouquet my husband gave me, I added a bunch of hearts with songs that bore witness of that truth-Our Heavenly Father loves us. I had children come up and pull out a heart (that had the names of the songs on the back), we talked about how that song helped us to know that our Heavenly Father loves us, and then we sang the song.

One thing that I want the kids to understand as I serve in this calling is that good music can comfort, uplift, teach, and strengthen us.    The spirit was very strong and I think that it brought comfort to the children.  I know that it did to me at least.