A Little Spiritual Cleaning

My husband and kids hate listening to the radio with me, because I'm very sensitive to musical lyrics and the affect that they have on me, and so I'm always announcing, "Oops, that's a bad song," and switching the channel. It takes me awhile to find anything appropriate to listen to.

Recently Erik and I attended a Stake Youth's Standard's Night with our girls. The topics included dressing modestly and listening to uplifting music. It stirred up inside of me a desire to filter through the songs on our i-pod again. I've done this many times through our married life, and although I think I'm pretty good about listening to the lyrics and only bringing good music into our home, it's amazing to me each time, how I can find more music to delete from our library.

For this purging, I decided to read the lyrics of each song (off the internet) as I listened to the song. I was shocked by the content - the messages embedded in the lyrics. Lyrics that seemed innocent enough suddenly became very clear in their message. I was surprised by the way the lyrics seemed to be just random words until I read them. For instance, just reading lines 1, 2 and 3 really didn't make any sense, but when reading lines 1, 3 & 5 or 2, 4 & 6 the messages became blatant and unmistakable. It took me 3 full days to filter through the music on our i-pod, and the process actually made me physically sick. I couldn't believe how much evil I had been singing and be-bopping to all these years, and bringing into our home.

Call me a prude if you want, I really don't care, because this cleansing experience was incredible. There were times when I still couldn't see anything necessarily "wrong" in the lyrics, and many times in those instances I could spiritually discern the intent of the song. I don't have words to describe how that felt to have the Holy Ghost guiding me that way - it was just incredible!

I got rid of a lot of music. I wish that I had kept track of the number of songs, but I didn't. Although I knew I had the help of the Holy Ghost, the messages and hidden meanings that I encountered really took a toll on my spirit. During the process I felt such darkness, and I had to keep pushing myself to look into the next song and then the next, wanting simply to be done with the whole thing, as soon as possible.

There was only one song that I hesitated momentarily before deleting. My thought process for that song was, "Oh, but I really like that song. I don't have to look at it that way. I can just remember the message that I thought it had." The Spirit quickly countered, "What would you give away to know me?" I didn't think twice about it, and immediately hit the delete button. Funny, even though it was only a couple of weeks ago, and I supposedly LOVED that song, I don't even remember what song it was anymore. After deleting that song, it became easier for me to discern and delete the other songs.

There's not much left on our i-pod anymore. There are a few oldies, lots of Christmas, and lots of gospel music, and a smattering of rock, pop, country, and easy listening - but not much. I don't miss any of it, not even one of the songs that got deleted - in fact, I feel so much more free and unburdened.

I remember when Erik's Mormor was in the process of leaving this earthly life. She had always been such a classy lady, always dressed to the hilt, with plenty of jewelry. I remember Jannicke telling me that in Mormor's last days, she started taking all her jewelry off, almost as if she didn't want to be burdened with it anymore. Removing the jewelry made the world have less of a hold on her spirit as she prepared to return to the presence of her Heavenly Father. Deleting that music was like that for me; with each song that got deleted, I could feel the world holding me down a little less.

It was a good feeling, and hopefully just a beginning. I would give it ALL away to know Him, my God, my Eternal Father, better.