Do You Want Karaoke, or Karaoke?

by Nicole Hilton, March 4, 2020

Discerning between Light and dark voices makes the difference between happiness and misery. The fruit of the Spirit of God brings joy and progress, but the fruit of darkness is misery and deterioration. In spite of heeding the wrong voice, Heavenly Father still found a way to show me He loves me.

Heavenly Father knew I was looking forward to my ward’s Single Adult activity: it was Karaoke night. But I missed it because I had just ended a conversation with a friend who believed she was receiving revelation through an angel, who she could hear. My friend is spiritually gifted, and there’s no doubt she can hear from the other side of the veil, but she is still learning to discern between the Light and dark sources. She has righteous desires, so the opposition regularly attempts to disguise itself as the Light for her. This “angel” first said some comments which seemed heavenly to win my trust. However, with subtle seemingly positive suggestions, ended up throwing grave doubt on my life decisions and my relationship with JJ. Then, the source suggested that I “rest” for the night and not go out, because of all the startling earth-shattering information shared with me.

            So I missed Karaoke, and instead of resting, I was very stressed out. I lashed out at JJ and verbally abused him—I was just awful to him, even though he was trying to help me and tell me that he doubted I was experiencing the fruits of the Spirit. It didn’t feel like it was from the Light to him. But I doubted us, and I doubted all the revelation I had received and we had received together for the past year.

            We both had horrible nights. I tried to repent all the next day and wavered back and forth before finally concluding that the “angel” my friend had relayed information from was, in fact, dark and was trying to confuse me and ruin my life.

            During all this, my mom sensed I was having a bad day. The Spirit prompted her to take me to get a pedicure. The day had been feeling more and more like darkness to me, and I was extremely depressed and down. But while we were getting our nails done, the cute Asian nail lady surprised us by hooking up an entire karaoke system, and she gave me and mom microphones. We sang our hearts out while we were being pampered! We have video of it—it was “spectacular” and hilarious and raised my spirits so much.

            It was only after I went home and reconciled more with JJ and everything seemed right with the world again that I realized: in the midst of a very hard trial, Heavenly Father provided me with the karaoke experience I’d missed because of that hard trial the night before—but upgraded it to something even better.

            Just like my “Do You Want Sushi, or Sushi?” story, Heavenly Father upgraded an experience that I really wanted. Yet, there was something different this time…In the sushi story, I had made righteous choices and done some service—I was being good, and following the spirit. In this story, it was the opposite. I listened to the wrong voice, I hurt someone I loved, I gave into fear, and I was scared and felt very much alone. Yet, He did the same thing—giving me something better than I would have had. This is how I know that my Heavenly Father loves me. He holds in remembrance the greater picture of who I am, and His love is never conditional on the circumstances of the moment. He always just gives. And that makes Him my Father. I believe this is how He is the Father to all of us—and we can see it if we simply open our eyes with a heart of gratitude to see the miracles He is bringing to pass especially for us.