If the Savior Stood Beside Me

It took me 16 years to discover this song. Where was I all that time? It was in the 2008 Primary program (clearly a memorable one for me since I can't recall hearing this song before 2009...) and it was actually first published in the Friend magazine when I was a "Merrie Miss" (when they used to have Merrie Misses). Yet somehow I missed it. Here is a version by a Young Women choir performing at a general Young Women meeting a few years ago.

I prefer to have my own Primary kids sing this song at a much faster tempo so that it is not quite so "dirge-y." But I still love this video. I love looking at all those girls' faces--I remember so clearly being that age and all the struggles that come with being a teenager. You alternate feeling self-conscious and confident, awkward and flirty; depressed one day, sure of your own worth the next. Definitely a roller-coaster.

Primary kids are so innocent--for the most part, they haven't yet been exposed to the barrage of the world that teenagers contend with every day, and they haven't yet made the same mistakes or learned the same lessons. But I still see innocence in the faces of these beautiful young women. They constantly struggle to stand apart from the crowd (whether they want to or not); they make mistakes and sorrow over them. There can still be innocence there, no matter what they have seen or said or done, because even if they have made wrong choices, they know how to repent; and if they do repent, that sorrow is mercifully washed away. I knew those feelings as a teenager too. I'm sure if I had heard this song back then, I would have wept just as I did the first time I heard this song as an adult. He is always near us, and He does watch over us.

Go here to learn more about the song--written by the prolific Sally DeFord--and find a variety of arrangements, as well as additional verses not previously published.

The score of this particular version (the one used in the video) is a bit fancy for the Primary crowd, but it has the key change in the third verse and again in the fourth verse, which makes a fabulous impact. I wonder if I could figure out how to simplify that for my Primary pianist so that we could utilize the final key change. Sounds complicated. But I love it.